One year after the disastrous Paris Games, gymnast Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos lifts the veil on her reconstruction

Usually reserved, her eyes filled with tears that evening. On July 28, 2024, in an Accor Arena Bercy racing to the rhythm of the French gymnastics team, the mascot Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos was eliminated during the qualifying rounds for the Games . The fault of falls, intense pressure, a misalignment of the stars. The multi-medalist at the European championships, Dior muse and face of French gymnastics, thus took a premature bow . "I just want to hide in a hole," she told the cameras.

And then, not a word spoken in public. After that nightmarish evening in July 2024, her Instagram account displayed a few posts tinged with melancholy. Until this week, when the 25-year-old athlete broke her silence. In a lengthy interview with L'Equipe , she spoke of a "trauma" from the Games, a "strange atmosphere" within the French team. "We were powerless. We suffered, suffered... But I can't be more specific," she says, echoing in particular the suspension of the team's coach, Nellu Pop , four months before the Games, for alleged acts of violence.

"Silences say a lot," notes Agathe Breton, director of the short documentary Golden Soul , who followed "MDJDS" to her native Martinique four months after the Games. Behind the postcard images lies the story of a double exile: that of a young gymnast who leaves her island for Saint-Etienne (Loire) at the age of 12, flies to the United States at the age of 22 to train alongside the greatest gymnast of all time, Simone Biles, and returns home after the Games to calmly take stock.

In Golden Soul, MDJDS plays pétanque, swears on her boat when a fish slips through her fingers, and sheds sports jargon and a shyness long rooted in her 52cm height. In short, she reaffirms her identity as a young adult muzzled by her status as a high-level gymnast. "We wanted to break this stereotype of the ultra-high-performance athlete at the expense of the human being behind it," explains the director, herself a former soccer player. "It's sad to see how the notion of pleasure in sport can be forgotten."