The son of a financial inspector and a teacher, Hugues Fabrice Zango could not imagine having a sports career. However, Burkinabè will be a very serious challenger for the Olympic gold medal in the triple jump on August 5 in Tokyo. Portrait.
Being an Olympic champion is not a dream for Hugo’s Fabrice Zango, it’s a project. And he already knows how he will achieve it on August 5, the day of the triple jump final. “The goal is very clear to beat the competition on the first try,” he asks calmly. After that I will not be seen anymore, the games will end after the first try. Nothing interests me other than Olympic gold so I prepare for it. By nature, I let go when I have a knife in my throat, I turn around, I look for solutions and it is not necessarily in accordance with the plot. In the Olympic final, you have to act and not think. The plot knocks everyone out on the first try. And then laugh at the other five. ”
Zango has not always made his ambitions so clear. But since his bronze medal at the last World Cup, he has made further progress. To the point of becoming the first jumper in history to fall further than 18 meters indoors. That day, in January last year, he broke the world record set ten years earlier by the Frenchman Teddy Tamgho. Tamgho did not suffer from it, especially since he has been Zango’s coach for two and a half years. In his group of athletes, the powerful Burkinabè – 1m80 for 80 kilos – has been given a nickname. “We call him the Jiren,” explains the world champion in 2013. Like the character of Dragon Ball, the greatest manga in history, which is both calm and absolute strength. That’s how we see Hugues. A person who will not necessarily speak but who releases a lot of power. Like this character, he is very bulky, very strong, and his goal is precision, absolute strength, victory. ”
Zango would therefore be a character in search of gold in many people’s land. And yet, to be an Olympic champion, it was not a dream for the child that he was in Burkina Faso. “Of course when I was younger, maybe it would go to NASA that interested me,” laughs Triple Jump Stallion. I was much more passionate about science than anything else. My school grades showed it. ”
“Born of an ego”
Until this day in 2011 when a college tournament led him to discover the Stade du August 4 in Ouagadougou. A duel over 60 meters. And a defeat that turns into a click. “If I had not been beaten in this competition,” he analyzes, “I’m sure I would not be an athlete. I asked myself, “But how could he hit me?” It haunts me until today because I could not take revenge on this person that I might be able to beat now. So yes, it was born of an ego. “
Zango’s ego drove him to break into sports. Without renouncing his passion for science. A few weeks ago, the athlete was very busy preparing the dissertation, which he will have to defend next year. A doctoral student in electrical engineering at Béthune in northern France, he is constantly looking for the difficult balance between sports and high-level studies. Rather skeptical in advance what the psychologist in his training group can give him, he now thinks that his help is invaluable. “It often happened to me that I was in training and thinking of an equation that I could not solve and inevitably disturbed me. But by applying the techniques that shrinkage showed us, I managed to dissociate my sport and my dissertation. ”
Now everything is for the triple jump and thinks – Teddy Tamgho knows it – about his country. “Hugues want to make Burkina proud,” the coach testified. When he talks to you about Burkina Faso, we see stars in his eyes. He also wants to do it to prove to himself that this guy from Ouaga can be number one in the world in an undeniable and undisputed way. He wants to do it. “
And if he does, Hugo’s Fabrice Zango will become Burkinabè’s first medalist at the Olympics.
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