Retro sport (6/16). July 16, Tallinn, Estonia. Jeff Erius (17), sets the best European performance of all time, among the cadets. The young Strasbourg resident keeps a cool head and continues to chart his course, with the Olympic Games in Paris (2024) and Los Angeles (2028) in focus.
July 16, Tallinn, Estonia. Jeff Erius (Strasbourg athletics agglomeration) in the 100m series at the European Junior Championships, establishes the best European performance of all time (10”27) among cadets (under 18). A European record which further confirms the immense hopes placed in him by the French athletics.
But the young Strasbourg man does not catch fire. “I couldn’t really take advantage of it”, he reveals to us. “I stayed focused on the semi-final and was disappointed to finish second in the final.”
So I allow myself to point out to him that the winner, the Briton Toby Makoyawo is 2 years older than him. Jeff Erius, despite being barely 17, interrupts me. “I don’t really like people talking about my age. I don’t think about it.” Sacred temperament. Jeff Erius is a competitor.
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In fact, I didn’t dare talk to him about his time of 10”27 and compare it to those of the French stars of the sprint at the same age: Christophe Lemaître (10”53 in 2007) and Jimmy Vicaut (10 ‘ ’56 in 2009). I could also have told him about his third place in the French elite championships in the 200m (and fifth in the 100m) when, let us remember, he is only a cadet.
He wants titles and his years in the cadets have deprived him of it. No major international events, for this age category, due to the pandemic. So what Jeff Erius remembers above all, from these European Championships this summer in Tallinn, is that he celebrated his first selection for the French team there (see in the video below).
The young Strasbourg native has only been practicing athletics for four years. To progress, but also to protect it from all kinds of stresses, he left Alsace to join the hopes center of Creps (Center for sports resources, expertise and performance) from Poitiers (Vienne). “I benefit from a good quality structure and I am a final year student, but my lessons are adapted.“
Jeff Erius hopes to make further progress in 2022, with the world junior championships on the program. And why not a first selection in the senior French team.
Obviously all athletes dream of Paris 2024. “It’s already in two and a half years. It’s too early for me, individually, but a selection in relay would already be a great satisfaction. I think more of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles [il aura alors 24 ans; ndlr].” After a last internship in Tenerife in December, the end of the year, it is in Alsace and Strasbourg that he will spend it.
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