Maxime Francois, a top 50 French badminton player, accomplished an amazing challenge yesterday in Estrées St Denis, a city one hour away from Paris. He finished a 2000-kilometre charity bike ride all over France as a Solibad Ambassador, visiting 20 badminton clubs in 30 days.
Photos: Loic Meuriot for Solibad
“It’s an amazing feeling. There have been some tough times. Some times where I just didn’t want to go back on the bike, but I kept telling myself to go on, because it’s for a great cause, and it was also because of the incredible welcome from all the clubs that I was able to complete this journey.”
Maxime Francois, a shuttler from France, was all smiles when he arrived and greeted his family and friends, 29 days after he had departed Paris on Solibad Day, on June 29th.
The 20-year-old started his journey in Britanny, in western France, welcome by France’s biggest club in Fougères – hopping on the famous Mont-Saint-Michel for a quick visit before heading to the south-western coast, then Montpellier, before heading towards the Alps and some famous mountains – Col du Galibier and Lotaret, very well known by all fans of the more famous Tour de France for being some of the world’s toughest places to ride on a bike.
“The Alps were an incredible experience. I took it as a challenge to be able to climb like the professionals, but it was really worth it. But I will keep many images in my head from this trip. All the people I’ve met, the warmth of the welcomes. Actually, it went by too quickly in spite of the hard times”.
All clubs which welcome Maxime signed a Solibad Charter, to engage themselves into helping promoting the foundation, through communicating their action and raising funds during the year. And it was a club member, each time, who hosted Maxime for a night or two before he went to the next club.
The journey ended with his father and grandmother welcoming him, as well as his friends while some of France’s finest shuttlers – Laura Choinet, Maxime Michel, Xavier Bruni and Polo N’gninn – gave a demonstration of badminton to the whole gang that had gathered for the occasion.
http://www.lautretourdefrance.fr was the official website of Maxime’s tour and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Solibad-LAutre-Tour-de-France/566499033383517 the Facebook page.
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