France was in mourning Tuesday after the deaths in a helicopter accident in Argentina of three well-known sports stars, along with seven other people. Here are profiles of the three:
FLORENCE ARTHAUD
Florence Arthaud was one of the world’s finest, bravest and most outspoken sailors, having succeeding in conquering what had been seen as a strictly male-dominated sport.
A household name in France where competitive sailors are held in the highest esteem, she was known for speaking her mind and for her love of freedom and adventure, criss-crossing the globe from the 1970s along with her generation of intrepid sailors. Her inspiration was the legendary Breton yachtsman Eric Tabarly.
Arthaud’s sheer determination and navigational skills brought her countless trophies including the prestigious Route du Rhum solo trans-Atlantic race in a 1990 watershed for the sport.
“We had nothing to our names, we didn’t have a house, we lived on our boats. We were a group of mates and we were all family,” the 57-year-old told AFP in October last year.
“I had my daughter when I was 36. I hadn’t had a typically woman’s life before that. I had a riotous and adventurous life.”
And so she did. In 2010, she was famously caught for drink driving.
The year after that, she fell out of her boat off the coast of Corsica in the middle of the night, but managed to sound the alarm thanks to a waterproof mobile phone and a headlamp, narrowly escaping death.
“It wasn’t my day, it was a real miracle,” she said later, after a helicopter had fished her out of the sea, conscious but suffering from hypothermia.
CAMILLE MUFFAT
She was just 25, but already had a long list of swimming achievements to her name, not least three medals at the London Olympics, including a gold in the 400-metre freestyle and silver in the 200-metre freestyle.
And her shock announcement last year that she was going to retire at the tender age of 24, exhausted by long hours of pool training, propelled her further into the spotlight.
Tall with long, auburn hair, Muffat’s exploits in London made her a superstar back home and more success was predicted for her at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
But the Nice-born swimmer was also shy and understated,
As a result, she found it difficult to deal with the glaring media attention she received from the age of just 15 when she beat the woman who was then France’s undisputed swimming star, Laure Manaudou.
“I wasn’t at all ready for that. Because it was Laure, all the media got carried away with. It was difficult to be compared to her all the time,” she told AFP in 2012, before the Olympics.
“They pitted her against me, I was three years younger, I thought that one day she was going to insult me.”
After her shock retirement, Muffat said she wanted to take more time out to enjoy life with her boyfriend, a former swimmer turned golfer.
“I don’t know what I want to do, but I think I will be able to manage to do something I like,” she had said.
ALEXIS VASTINE
His death alone would have been tragic enough for his family, but in a cruel twist of fate, Alexis Vastine’s younger sister Celie was killed in a car crash in January aged 21.
Vastine’s lifelong goal had always been to win Olympic gold in the ring, and his tears and emotion after failing to do so moved the French sporting world.
The 28-year-old took a bronze medal in Beijing at light-welterweight in 2008 and lost in the quarter-finals in London at welterweight four years later. On both occasions he went down on points and insisted that he had been robbed of victory.
“I did’t think that could happen to me a second time,” he said through his tears after the loss in London. “It’s so unfair and I am fed up with it all.”
Following London, he suffered a bout of depression and struggled with injuries but he was still preparing for another tilt at gold in the Rio Olympics next year.
“His ultimate goal was to become Olympic champion and he was getting ready for Rio-2016,” said Brahim Asloum, the only French boxer to win both a world title and Olympic gold.