Charlotte Pichard

Happy birthday to France’s sprint hurdler Charlotte Pichard, a national champion who took her hurdling from the Hauts-de-Seine to the Arizona desert.

Charlotte won the French Junior indoor title over 60m hurdles at Nantes, and she did it in the most emphatic way available: she arrived with a best of 8.58 and ran 8.37 in the final, taking 0.21 off her own personal best when the medal was on the line. Most athletes tighten up in a final. She has since brought her indoor hurdles best to 8.32, and she is quick on the flat too, with a 7.71 over 60m.

The 60m hurdles is a specialist’s event, decided almost entirely by what happens in the first fifteen metres and by whether an athlete can hold her rhythm when the barriers start arriving faster than she can think. Winning a national title in it as a junior says the technical foundation was built properly and early, which is the part nobody can shortcut later.

She came up through Athlé 92 in the Hauts-de-Seine, out of Clamart, and now races for the Grand Canyon Lopes in Phoenix, where she is a graduate student-athlete competing in the Mountain West Conference. Splitting a life between Paris and Phoenix, in two different athletics cultures and two languages, is its own kind of work on top of the training, and her own bio puts the two cities side by side as if they were one place., with a national title already banked and a degree in progress on another continent, she has built a career that belongs entirely to her.

Joyeux anniversaire, Charlotte! Nous t’adressons nos vœux les plus sincères — une bonne santé, beaucoup de bonheur et une très belle année, avec des haies qui tombent les unes après les autres. Profite bien de ta journée! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇫🇷