Crammed around the television at school, she watched as New Zealand Olympic swimmer Danyon Loader raced to victory at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. “I came home and told my mum that I wanted to go to the Olympics, and that I wanted to win 10 gold medals.” The funny thing is, French actually meant it. “I was serious about wanting to go. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve found it’.”
Fast forward 25 years, and French was lining up for the 5000m and 10,000m races at the Tokyo Olympics. The journey to get there was not an easy one. “Athletics is a tough event,” she explains. “It requires a lot of training, and things have to go right. You have to travel a lot, which is exciting, but sometimes difficult being from New Zealand. Then you’re juggling it financially, that’s not always easy.” Admittedly, competing in a COVID-era Olympics – which meant no crowds, regular PCR tests and limited mingling between athletes – did not quite live up to the dream she had in her head. “I remember racing my last event in Tokyo and thinking, ‘This can’t be it’. That can’t be the experience, I have to give it another go. I have to go to Paris.”
Changing Plans
There was one small shift in her plan, which came with the birth of her daughter, Sienna, in 2022, who she shares with her husband, fellow athlete Cameron French. “Obviously everything was different. I’d just gone through a pregnancy and recovering from the birth to get back into training. I wanted a different goal, as well. I didn’t want to compare everything to what I’d done before. My life was so different, I couldn’t just go off to training camp or do lots of races,” she explains. “I just wanted something so different that I had to create a new plan, and I’d always wanted to run a marathon.” The marathon is one of the iconic events at the Olympic Games, taking place on the final day.
In December 2023, French lined up for her first big marathon race, hoping to secure an Olympic qualifying time at the Valencia marathon. This time, she had her daughter and husband cheering her on from the sidelines. “My training had gone really well in the lead-up. I’d managed to get through these huge weeks of tough sessions and juggle everything.”
Despite a stressful flight over with all three of them getting sick, French managed to pull through and find the motivation she needed to get race-ready. “I’d just decided that I would be able to do it. Standing on the start line obviously was such an unknown, but I was so confident. I felt like I didn’t really have a choice. I’d literally flown my family over, it’s my job to do the race. I didn’t have a plan B. I thought of all the people who’d helped me get there, and it was my responsibility to get there.”
Crossing the finish line, and securing the Olympic qualification, she felt a huge sigh of relief. Camille ran a time of 2:26:08 at the Valencia marathon, beating the Olympic qualifying standard by 42 seconds.
“It was so special for me to have Sienna there. It made me be able to do it because she was there on my side.”
While always driven to keep competing, French admits that she had reservations when she first got back into training after giving birth to Sienna. “I thought, ‘This is too hard.’ I wondered how can I juggle it? How can I be present? How can I be a good mum? I managed to gradually fit it all together, with help from my family. I’m so grateful that I tried. I would be gutted if I had thought it was too hard and then not tried.” Having a partner who could relate to the pressures of being an elite athlete also helped. “He completely understands. When I said it was getting tough, he would say, ‘But you’re tougher, you can do it.’”
As she sets her sights for the Paris 2024 Olympics, racing on August 11, French is excited to be representing New Zealand once more, and is proud to see how far she’s come since being that five-year-old with an Olympic dream. “Everyone has ups and downs, I wouldn’t say it’s been a smooth road. There are lots of challenges along the way that no one sees,” she says.
“I’ve learned to have the confidence to give it a go. I’m proud of the fact that I believed that I could do it. That’s the message I want to pass on to others.”
