Word: flessel
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...Flessel-Colovic's fencing successes turned her into a sports-page heroine. As a black woman from the Caribbean excelling in a sport usually associated with white European men, she joined the high-profile members of France's world and European champion soccer team as a positive icon of the country's changing, multiethnic face...
...What I don't want people forgetting is that I'm first and foremost a fencer," stresses Flessel-Colovic, whose wedding in 1996 to a French journalist generated wider media coverage than most of her competitions enjoy. "After all, if people know who I am at all, it's thanks to my sport. All the rest--the attention, the fame--is fleeting...
What brought the native of Guadeloupe to the summit of the fencing world was an unrelenting drive and competitive ferocity that early on earned her the sobriquet la Guepe--the Wasp. Flessel-Colovic latched onto fencing at age seven after seeing French legend Jean-Francois Lamour on television. She abandoned dance lessons for the local fencing club--and soon began a victorious ascent through local and regional ranks. The promising southpaw didn't leave home for Paris, and intensive training, until 1990, when--at 19, far from family, friends and acquaintances--she fought off loneliness by pouring all her attention...
...Flessel-Colovic points out that unlike soccer, "fencing doesn't feed you"--a fact that obliges her to juggle a career promoting business travel for Paris' office of tourism. She welcomes the work obligations because they help her budget her time better and remain focused on the task--or combat--before her. In Sydney, Flessel-Colovic will need to turn her attention to Hungary's Ildiko Mincza and Italy's Cristina Cascioli, her probable rivals for the gold...
...Olympic baby" before leaving Australia. She is adamant, however, about adding a missing European championship crown to her collection of titles. She is also eager to front the French team that will be host to the world championship competition in 2001--a full fencing agenda that should leave Flessel-Colovic's fans plenty of time to savor her personality and watch la Guepe continue to sting...