One year after the Games: Charline Picon, at sea and against all odds

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Bronze medalist last summer, the windsurfer has just survived a shipwreck during a family round-the-world trip.

Charline Picon at the tip of Grouin, in Ars-en-Ré (Charente-Maritime), June 26, 2025. (Théophile Trossat/Libération)

Medalists, artists, and organizers all made their mark on the Parisian Olympic salvo. What impact did it have on their lives and careers? Key figures from the Games agreed to rekindle the flame for Libération.

A year ago, she had just won a bronze medal with her partner Sarah Steyaert on the 49er FX, an ultra-technical, "soap-boat" style dinghy for tightrope walkers. Now, she's killing time at her parents' house in Arvert, a small town near Royan. With Lou, her 8-year-old daughter, and Jean-Emmanuel Mestre, her 57-year-old partner nicknamed "Mano," Charline Picon, 40, travels back and forth between Arvert and Ars-en-Ré, to stay with her in-laws. The couple's house in La Rochelle is rented until October, when they were supposed to return to mainland France after their family world tour. They now find themselves squatting at their respective parents' houses.

She still has a tanned complexion, still has that sparkling gaze and that machine-gun delivery, but it is now punctuated by silences. Because the journey along the school route almost went very wrong. It ended abruptly on the night of May 31 to June 1 between the Marquesas and the Tuamotus, when their 14-meter catamaran struck a "UFO" (unidentified floating object), causing a major leak in the port hull. The crew just had time to send out a distress call before jumping into the life raft and seeing Luna Bay II