Guy Lagorce

Before he became a prize- winning journalist and writer Guy Lagorce was a successful sprint athlete in the 100 and 200 metres. Lagorce was selected to run in the 4 × 100 metres relay at the 1960 Roma Olympics, but did not run after the French team were eliminated in their opening heat following a disqualification. In 1961 Lagorce, Paul Genevay, Jocelyn Delecour, and Claude Piquemal broke the French record in the 4 x 100 metres relay with a time of 39.9 seconds. A month later the same quartet broke the European record in the 4 x 200 metres relay.

Once Lagorce had finished his athletics career he became a sports journalist, first working for L’Équipe, before working at TF1, Le Figaro, Paris Match and L’Express. In the early 1970s Lagorce became a writer, starting with his reference work _ La Fabuleuse Histoire des Jeux Olympiques_. He wrote more than 20 novels during his career with several of them being adapted into films, including Ne pleure pas (“Don’t Cry”), directed by Jacques Ertaud and released in 1978. In 1984 Lagorce won the French literary award the prix des libraires for his novel Le Train du soir.