Presenting the ENGIE Team athletes

Not only is Pierre le Coq a high-level athlete and a bronze medallist from Rio in 2016, he is also a dental surgeon, obtaining a diploma while preparing for the Olympics, thus ensuring his future professional reconversion. 
 
Following a hiatus from sports after Rio in 2016, he started training again in 2018 with the Olympics in mind. The bronze medal that he received during the first stage of the 2019 World Championships in Miami and the gold medal in the France Elite Championships are very promising. Unfortunately, he finished 6th at the 2020 World Championships in Australia (2nd in France), which is not enough for him to secure the only male spot for France at the Tokyo Games. The ENGIE Team champion has therefore set his gaze on a new objective for the 2024 Paris Games in which he will opt for a new format; the iFoil, an upgraded version of the RS:X board.

With two World Junior Champion titles (2006 and 2008), Pauline Ado joins the exclusive circle of the WSL Championship Tour in 2011, a competition that brings together the top female surfers in the world. She comes in 9th in her first year of participation. In 2017 however, the Basque surfer adds two World Champion titles to her list of achievements. A team title and an individual title at the ISA World Surfing Games in Biarritz. She does all of this in her home region and in front of her family and friends. 

On the “World Qualifying Series” circuit, the competitions follow one another throughout the world. In 2019, the team ENGIE surfer wins two European titles in a row; in Caparica and in Zarautz. 
 
In 2020, Pauline Ado carries on with her efforts to qualify and gets off to a good start with a victory at the Cabreiroá Pro Las Americas in Tenerife (Spain) and a bronze medal in Newcastle during her Australian tour.
 
Following the 2021 World Championships in El Salvador, Pauline qualified for the Olympic Games and took part in surfing’s first appearance at the Olympics After a well-deserved qualification to the 2nd round, Pauline had to go through the repechage in order to qualify for the finals. Unfortunately, due to difficult weather conditions such as strong lateral winds, the morning of the round of 16 did not go as she had planned. Despite a fierce performance, Pauline was not able to outperform the Australian Sally Fitzgibbons, 3rd in the world. Although she was hoping for greater results, this initial experience of the Games brought many valuable lessons and new motivations for the ENGIE Team surfer, now preparing herself for Paris in 2024.

A strong advocate of ocean protection, Pauline became a Surf Rider ambassador in order to defend the natural sites that she cherishes. Following the forest fires near Anglet in 2021, Pauline was quick to mobilise her community and act as a local ambassador to help the Ajudam Pignada association raise funds for reforestation.
Since 2009, Pauline has also been the sponsor of the Handi Surf association, her objective being to pass on her passion and ensure that surfing is accessible to all people with disabilities. 

Elodie began her career as a swimmer: a member of Pôle France at Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via, she was then coached by Philippe Lucas in Canet-en-Roussillon. In 2008, at the French Swimming Championships, she just missed out on qualifying for the Olympics in Beijing.

Elodie then decided to focus her attention on the Modern Pentathlon, and joined INSEP in September 2008. In 2010, she won the bronze medal at the French Championships, the Junior World Championships and the European Team Championships. The following year, she became French Champion for the Modern Pentathlon, and finished third in the final round of the World Cup, which took place in London.

When she opted for the modern pentathlon, Elodie discovered a discipline that combines five military skills and joined the army of champions. Most of her horse-riding practice took place with the French republican guard, where she was initially a brigadier-in-chief, then a sub-lieutenant, before being promoted to the rank of lieutenant, in a demonstration of her loyalty to the French gendarmerie. She is also a sponsor of the “Gendarmes de Cœur” association, which helps members of the gendarmerie affected by illness, disability or the loss of a loved one.

On March 17, 2012, she won the World Cup in Rio and qualified for the London Games.

She also qualified for the Rio 2016, taking silver, which was the first individual Olympic medal for France in the Modern Pentathlon.

After her Olympic success, she struggled to return to competition, with results that failed to match the Team ENGIE athlete’s own high expectations.

But through sheer hard work and determination, Elodie has made progress year after year, and her target is a gold medal in the Games.

 

In 2021, Team ENGIE’s athlete became World Vice Champion in Cairo (Egypt), winning a silver medal and booking her place in the Tokyo Olympics!

Despite her Olympic experience in Rio, Elodie Clouvel could only secure sixth position in the Tokyo Games. After some difficulties on the first day with the fencing event because of a problem with her heel, the Team ENGIE athlete began her second day in only 24th place. Thanks to her previous experience as a professional swimmer and her competitive spirit, Elodie managed to climb up a few places in the general ranking after securing third place in the 200 m freestyle swim. With a lot of momentum, she was able to begin the show jumping with a little more peace of mind. Before the laser run, the Saint-Etienne ENGIE ambassador had a 25-second handicap to make up. Unfortunately, Elodie’s very best efforts were not enough. Although she did manage to climb up two places in the last event and finish in sixth place in the overall ranking – better than any of her teammates.

In 2022, Elodie proved that she remains one of the best pentathletes in the world by winning the World Cup final in Ankara (Turkey). Two years before the Paris Games, this performance is more than encouraging for the ENGIE Team athlete. 

Take a look at a "typical training day" with Team ENGIE member Elodie Clouvel! 

Competing in the under 78 kg category, she began judo at the FJEP-Chambly club before furthering her athletic career at Judo Amiens Métropole Picardie.
 
Seen as a future great prospect of French judo, she joins INSEP in 2010 to continue her development before joining the Levallois Sporting Club in 2013. She becomes champion of France in the under 78 kg category in 2014. The French judoka continues to grow in strength, adding two Grand SLAMs in 2015, in Samsun and Baku, to her list of victories. Madeleine also wins the team gold medal at the European Championships with the French team. In parallel to her training and competitions, Madeleine joined the Institut de Formation en Soins Infirmiers (IFSI) at the St Maurice National Hospital to become a paediatric nurse. She put her training on hold for a while to devote herself fully to her sporting career.
 
In 2017, she builds up her experience to perform at the highest international level, participating in the St Petersburg Masters where she finishes second. She then becomes the European Champion in Tel Aviv in 2018.
 
The 2019 season starts well for Madeleine with a first victory at the Grand Slam in Paris, subsequently reaching her highest level in August as a World Champion in Tokyo. With the support provided by Group, the judoka continues her work and starts off 2020 the same way she did in 2019 - with a victory at the Paris Grand Slam.
 
Madeleine begins 2021 by confirming her status as world champion in under 78 kg, winning the Doha Masters, the only one organised due to the pandemic. This victory allowed her to compete in Tokyo. A few months later, Madeleine did not manage to retain her world championship title won in Tokyo in 2019, but she still reached the second step of the podium. 

The Tokyo Games were a success for Madeleine Malonga, who won two fine medals in her first participation in an Olympiad. She won gold in the team event and silver in the individual event! 

While pursuing her career as a top-level athlete, Madeleine qualified as a mental coach, as well as a life coach course at HEC Paris – a new stage in her personal and professional life from which she will doubtless learn a great deal. 

Discover a "typical training day" with Madeleine Malonga, member of Team ENGIE!

Before arriving at this victory, Luka had to leave his native country, Georgia, at the age of 13, following the war with Russia. He arrived in France, in the Val-de-Marne, on 10 March 2010 with the help of a smuggler. He and his family were then sent to a home with other refugees in Le Havre. Both talented and motivated, he joined the Le Havre judo club and, as such, benefited from the intervention of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who was at the time the mayor of Le Havre, to obtain French nationality in 2015.
 
Brimming with potential, Luka’s sporting career was now ready to take off. Following the Pôle Espoir de Rouen training centre, the judoka arrived in Sucy in 2016 and joined the INSEP one year later.
 
Since 2017, Luka has been regularly participating in major international, continental and national events. In 2017, he took 2nd place at the European Cup in Malaga and Dubrovnik, and became Junior Champion of France. In 2018, he won the Madrid Open and claimed silver in Cancun and Minsk before also becoming Champion of France through his team in 2018 with Sucy.
 
The start of 2021 was punctuated with several victories for Luka. After winning a bronze medal at the Tashkent Grand Slam, the Team ENGIE judoka became European runner-up in Lisbon. These wonderful performances helped him stand out and qualify. In Tokyo, Luka kicked-off with a spectacular victory against Spain’s Francisco Garrigos, an adversary to whom he had lost in the final of the European Championships in April. He then went on to the next round where he outperformed the Ukrainian Artem Lesiuk. In the semi-finals, he unfortunately loses in the golden score round to the Taiwanese Yung Wei Yang in an extremely tough fight. Although exhausted, Luka’s strong spirit - which he had developed since his youth - allowed him to quickly recover and dominate Korea’s Kim Won-Jin a half hour later in the match for 3rd place. After fleeing the war in Georgia, Luka arrived in France in 2010, and moved the whole nation by winning the French delegation’s first medal.

The 2021 European vice champion and bronze medal winner at the Tokyo Olympics was not able to compete in the 2022 European Championships. This is because just a few weeks before they started, during a course with the France team in Mongolia, the Team ENGIE judoka suffered a torn cruciate ligament in his right knee, forcing him to return to France immediately. Luka underwent surgery and was monitored by a physio for his rehabilitation. 

Luka was very stoical about this injury: “Obviously it's very difficult for me to be so far away from the mats for such a long time, but that's just the way it is. I have to accept it and deal with it. I keep telling myself that there are far more serious things in life and this is just sport”.

Luka returned to the mat at the end of January with some very encouraging performances for the rest of the season.

See how Luka is managing his rehabilitation in pictures: 

One of the great hopes of French Athletics, he finished twice on the podium at the 2017 European Junior Championships in Grosseto, Italy, winning the 400m hurdles and taking silver in the 4x400m.
 

Following these early successes, he went on to win several titles in his favorite event, the 400 meters hurdles:
•    French Champion in 2019 (Saint Etienne, France)
•    European U23 Champion in 2019 (Gävle, Sweden)
•    Participation in the World Championships in 2019 (Doha, Qatar)
 

In November 2019, he joined the Lille Métropole Athletics club (LMA) and he became French Elite Champion for the first time. The ENGIE Team athlete will not stop on this victory as he will keep his French Champion title in 2020 and in 2021 during the French Athletics Championships in Angers (49). Great performances that allowed him to stand out and to get his precious sesame for Tokyo. An accolade for this extremely promising young man in French athletics who was not prepared to wait until 2024 for his first taste of the Olympics.

For his first Olympic Games, Wilfried Happio ranked fifth (49:39), which opened the doors of the semi-finals for him. Unfortunately, competition in the finals was just a little too stiff for the ENGIE ambassador from the Lille area.

In 2022, the young athlete from Team ENGIE continues to progress. During the French Athletics Championships held in Caen (14), he retained his French championship title for the 4th consecutive year by beating his personal best in 48''57, which opened the doors to the World Championships in Eugene (Oregon- USA).

As proof of his meteoric progress, Wilfried finished 4th in this World Championship, two hundredths of a second from the podium. He once again beat his personal best with a time of 47''41, only four hundredths off Stéphane Diagana's French record, the second best French performance of all time.

Only a month later, Wilfried made a name for himself again with his performance as European vice-champion in Munich.

At 17, Fabien became a quadriplegic following a car accident. Athletic by nature, he discovers table tennis while in rehabilitation. Fabien very quickly finds his calling: once his rehabilitation completed, he joins the CSINI (Cercle Sportif de l'Institution Nationale des Invalides de Paris) where he meets his current coach, Fabrice Kosiak.

He takes part in his first international competition in Sicily in 2003. Although he is held back for a few years due to administrative complications around the recognition of his correct disability category (class 2), Fabien did not lose hope. Categorised in class 2, his Paralympic adventure will only begin in 2012 at the London Games, where he wins a bronze medal in singles and a silver medal in doubles.

From that moment on, Fabien was on the road to success: double World Champion in 2014, then double European Champion in 2015. The following year, the Rio Games saw him become the double Paralympic Champion, where he won a gold medal in the individual competition and in the team event. Selected for the Tokyo Games, the Team ENGIE athlete retained his Paralympic Champion title, once again winning a gold medal in the individual competition and in the team event! 

In 2022 Fabien won gold at the class 2 para table tennis world Championships in Granada. With this third world title under his belt, Fabien has confirmed his place as a top-ranking athlete in his category. His aim for Paris 2024 will be to retain his Paralympic title for the third consecutive time after the Rio and Tokyo Games. This would be a true feat and would gain him a highly deserved entry into the pantheon of French sport.

 
 
Prize list

• 2023: Victory at the ITTF Costa Brava Spanish Para Open
• 2022: Individual World Champion
• 2021: Double Paralympic Champion in Tokyo (singles and team) and elite individual French Champion
• 2019: Double European Champion (singles and doubles)
• 2018: World Champion (singles)
• 2017: World silver medallist in doubles 
• 2016: Double Paralympic Champion in Rio (singles and doubles)
• 2015: Double European Champion (singles and doubles)
• 2014: Double World Champion (singles and doubles)
• 2013: European Champion in doubles
• 2012: Bronze medal in singles and silver medal in doubles at the Paralympics in London.

Find out what a typical day’s training looks like with Fabien Lamirault 

He is currently showing a great deal of promise on the French kite surfing circuit, has just won the European Kitefoil Championships for the third time and is the Gold Cup World Champion.

Before ramping up his performance, Axel made his mark on the ENGIE Kite Tour on the French speed crossing circuit. He started competing in it in 2013 and won the circuit three years in a row. 
2021 was a year brimming with victories for the Team ENGIE athlete: he won the European Championship title, as well as the World Vice Champion title, among others. 
Although he did not succeed in retaining his European title, Axel did manage to secure a magnificent bronze medal in the 2022 World Kitefoil Championships – clear evidence of his champion temperament.
Kite surfing will make its debut as an Olympic discipline at the Paris 2024 Games. It will be a fantastic opportunity for him – he now wants to qualify and win a medal. 

Achievements

• 2022:
  • 3^rd in the World Kitefoil Championships
  • 2^nd in the ENGIE Kite Tour
• 2021:
  • Winner of the ENGIE Kite Tour
  • Vice World Champion
  • European Champion 
  • Winner of the Mondial du Vent in Leucate (individual and mixed relays)
  • Winner of the Kitefoil World Series
  • Winner of the Formula Kite Spain 
• 2020:
  • European Champion
  • Winner of the ENGIE Kite Tour
• 2019: 
  • European Champion
  • Winner of the ENGIE Kite Tour 
  • Winner of the Kitefoil Gold Cup
  • Winner of the Défikite
• 2018:
  • 6^th in the World Kite Championships
  • 4^th in the French Championships 
• 2017:
  • Vice World Champion
  • European Vice Champion

In March 2020, Raphaël took on the challenge of participating in the Tokyo Paralympic Games in the kilometre standing start in tandem with François Pervis as pilot. At 37, François is a key figure in French track cycling world. His track record speaks for itself: 7 world championship titles (including 4 in the kilometre event), bronze medallist at the Rio Games in 2016, world record holder in the kilometre time trial.

The postponement of the event was a blessing for Raphaël and his pilot François, because it allowed them to train for an extra year. On 28 August, the Team ENGIE para cyclist tandem pair won a brilliant bronze medal that rewarded the magnificent preparation of this duo, who have been practising together for just 18 months. 

The French pair completed the four laps of the track in 1’00‘’472, at an average speed of almost 60 kph, setting a new personal best. It was a great Paralympic debut for Raphaël, and a fantastic way for François to end his career, by becoming the fourth-ever athlete to win a medal in both the Olympic and the Paralympic Games.

In 2022, Raphaël teamed up with a new pilot – Quentin Caleyron. It was a good year for the tandem pair: they won the French Championship title in the omnium sprint and came forth in two events at the Mondiaux de paracyclisme (kilometre and speed). They also set a new record, covering 200 m in 10.036 seconds. Encouraging results for this young tandem pair.

Raphaël now has his sights set on a medal at the Paris Paralympic Games with his new pilot Quentin Caleyron!

3 Tandem Prize List with Quentin Caleyron

• 2^nd at the French Championships

The tandem’s achievements with Quentin Caleyron in 2022

• 4^th in the Mondiaux (kilometre and speed)
• France champions in the omnium sprint (speed, 200 m and kilometre)
• France vice champions in the pursuit

The tandem’s achievements with François Pervis in 2021

• Bronze medals at the Tokyo Paralympic Games in the standing-start kilometre
• Three French disabled sport championship titles (speed, pursuit and kilometre) in 2021.

Raphaël’s achievements

• World Para-duathlon Champion in 2012
• 22 French Championship titles (8 on road and 14 on track)
• 4^th in the World Track Cycling Championships

When she started kite surfing in 2015, quickly established herself as a promising young athlete on the French kite surfing scene.

Three years later, she won a silver medal in the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and ranked third in the 2020 French Kitefoil Championships.

For many years now, Poema has been climbing up through the ranks on the ENGIE Kite Tour – the leading French speed crossing event – and will obviously be taking part in the stages of the 2023 edition. At the same time, she regularly takes part in and performs at major international competitions, such as the Mondiaux and the European Championships.

Last year was more nuanced – despite her finishing in sixth place in the last World Championships. 

Kite surfing will make its debut as an Olympic discipline at the Paris 2024 Games. It will be a fantastic opportunity for her – she now wants to qualify and win a medal.