Colette and sport

At a time when sport was primarily a man's business, Colette was a pioneer in this field. She practised horse riding, cycling and physical training, of which she was one of the first enthusiasts. Exercising and maintaining her body was also a professional duty for her when she embarked on a career as a mime and dancer in the music hall. Gymnastics, stretching exercises, apparatus, dance and even boxing lessons! Later, she discovered winter sports: skiing, luge, skating and bobsleigh. A great swimmer, she was able to cover long distances effortlessly. She made the front pages of sports magazines and devoted part of her journalistic work to reporting on sporting events. Here again, she was in the vanguard, the first woman to do sports journalism: boxing matches, stages of the Tour de France, aerial sports... Her life itself took on the appearance of a struggle full of movement, of a permanent challenge that forced her to expend herself without counting the cost, to surpass herself in order to carve out a place for herself, the first if possible, in all the fields in which she ventured. A champion's career, a rare example of a woman who has turned her life and her work into a true physical performance!