Hi Louis, could you introduce yourself in a few words?
Louis Radius, a top athlete since 2006 and practicing athletics. My specialty is the 1500 m. I participated in 2 Paralympic Games. I have been a medalist many times, for example at the last Rio Games in the 1500m (bronze) and two Vice world champion titles in the 1500 m and a European record in the 1500 m. I graduated in sports professions including training and development of mass sport, also graduated in physical preparation and nutrition and technique for optimizing potential.
What is your view on mental preparation?
It’s an essential tool for any amateur or top athlete, a real device involving many performance factors. Today it’s essential and timeless. Mental preparation opens up the field of possibilities in the approach of unequivocal well-being. It’s a real everyday tool which goes beyond the world of high level sport and which invades the entrepreneurial spheres allowing to develop in oneself knowledge, skills and unexpected resources as we are focused on our own life, our goals, the pressure of the result and the routines of a performance path.
Did you use it?
Yes of course since 2016. This has had a crazy effect on performance and on daily life. The PM essentially brings me a balance of life, a hygiene of the “senses”, an introspection on oneself and the others and to release in me the best,« the pure juice » going to the basics.
Do you know if a lot of Paralympic athletes use mental preparation?
Today, we are coming very slowly because it’s not yet democratized and the federations are slowly getting there and are “groping”. In terms of individuality, athletes who have created their “team” like me include a mental coach or a sophrologist. There is still a long way to go before MP becomes part of the sport. I really believe in it.
How do you see the postponement of the Paralympic Games in 2021?
The postponement of the games was inevitable, but I was under pressure between march and april because I could not prepare for a season when there would have been problems of fairness between athletes and nations. The games take place every 4 years and should not be reduced to a simple sporting event which rakes in millions. Behind it’s “human” with athletes who train and play their careers. Behind this, there is a real “sacrifice” and “commitment” of all. I couldn’t imagine ending my career on a white season. I’m leaving for 1 more year hoping to be stronger than the previous year.
How do you manage this period of confinement on a sporting level? Did you have to change your routines?
Since confinement, there have been two stages. The first keep this sharpening in the hope that the qualifying competitions can be maintained and the second after the Games have been postponed to reduce the training volume by going from 12 workouts to 8 and keeping as guidelines the recommendations of the French government.
What are your plans for the future ?
My plans for the future:
On the Sports side have been my last two years at a high level with the Tokyo Games in 2021 and the World championships in 2022 in Kobe which will conclude a real commitment and an accomplished career and which will hopefully allow to have brought at least to sport of major developments.
Any question (s) you wish you had been asked?
On the professional side, I’m currently a State executive from the Ministry of Sports and I wish to become either a national coach of a federation, or work on a performance support unit within a federation, a private structure or to work for another country in the fields of high performance sport.
Other projects motivate me, being a consultant for private companies and acting on support for employees on themes that are essential to the well-being of people and to optimize their potential.
What are your dreams ?
To be independent, to be free from my intellectual thought paths, from my choices and way of life.
My dreams are also a reflection of my limitless ambitions.
There should be no limits in life. The only limit we set is ourselves.
One of my dreams also is to pass on my experience and skills to other cultures, to other countries.
What are you looking for in your life?
To respond to societal issues and challenges, challenges that I have set for myself (competitive spirit), to show empathy, kindness, to transmit to others and the thirst to share and exchange.
What is your motto?
“Sport a tool for a life”
Sport can be replaced by something else “music for example, something that you are passionate about a tool = a kind of lever and we can have several and” a life “because our personal journey can lead us to have several …
A trace of my passage within the sports world, of an authentic, human, generous, persevering man, lover of beautiful things, ambitious and ethical. A healthy man of body and mind whose goals were personal fulfillment, free will and simply “to be free”.