When Léa will stop

Genre: Documentary film
Running time: 52 minutes
Director: Gilles Blaize
Authors: Gilles Blaize / Léa Jamelot
Image: Henry Marquis
Music: Guillaume Le Hénaff
Production: La Belle Vie média / Dreamway Productions in coproduction with France Télévision / Tébéo / Tébésud / TVR
Technical ressources: La Belle Vie média / MOOk Productions
Synopsis: “Who will I be, who will I become, on the day I announce the end of my career as a top-level athlete?”
At the age of 32, Léa has already spent half her life – 16 years – travelling the world to compete in international events and two Olympic Games with the French sprint kayaking team. This – long – experience has shaped her into the person she is today; it is her very identity.
Although she does not yet know the date of her ‘retirement’, the question has been on her mind for several months now. And even more so since her Federation informed her, in December 2024, that her career development contract was coming to an end – a situation that led her to resign from her role as communications officer at a company in Brittany.
To prepare as best she can for the next chapter of her life, Léa wishes to share her many concerns and discuss them with anyone who might be able to help her navigate this professional – and indeed existential – turning point.
How can one successfully navigate this ‘transition’ – which only 20 per cent of elite athletes manage to achieve – whilst leaving behind the exhilaration of a life lived ‘at breakneck speed’ and ‘in the spotlight’? How does one come to terms with the loss of one’s identity and (re)invent another that is just as fulfilling and just as exhilarating?
And first of all… when to leave? This year, as she had originally planned, marking the end of her career with one final sporting challenge – a rite of passage, the descent of the Nantes–Brest Canal, scheduled for June 2025? Or later, to put off that dreaded moment for a while, her gaze fixed far beyond Brest, much further west, all the way to Los Angeles and its upcoming Olympic Games, the excitement of which she can already feel?
The answer lies at the end of the canal…