Olympic Compere Extraordinaire Plans Active Retirement

(ATR) Veteran Olympic correspondent Alain Lunzenfichter says farewell to L'Equipe after 37 years at the newspaper during which he has covered 17 Summer and Winter Games.

Lunzenfichter tweeted Monday: "Je quitte @lequipe ce soir après 37 ans et demi de présence au journal, 17 JO et plus de 100 championnats du monde."

"It was my life," Lunzenfichter, the charismatic 64-year-old tells Around the Rings.

"It is difficult, it’s my first day [out of L'Equipe]," he said, "The newspaper is still living. It’s difficult but when you have to stop, you stop."

The French IOC and Olympic expert said it was too soon to gauge his true emotions: "I will see in a few months...that’s life. I was the oldest in the newspaper."

Lunzenfichter, one of the longest-serving Olympics and track and field reporters, said what he will miss most is the opportunity "to go everywhere in the world."

He plans to write books in his retirement years "about the IOC, about track and field, the marathons. I have several books to finish… I will have time to make it."

Born in 1949, he began his newspaper career on a running journal before moving to L'Equipe in 1976 where he specialized in athletics, attending meetings "everywhere in world to see and meet a lot of athletes." He became an Olympic correspondent three years later while keeping his athletics brief.

Known as "Lulu" to some of his colleagues, Lunzenfichter had held one of the top editing jobs at L'Equipe for many years - rédacteur en chef. In 2000, he combined that with an ambassadorial role for the newspaper at Olympic events. He was charged with maintaining strong relations with the IOC and international sports federations.

With a staggering 28 marathons to his name (his best time: 2:28 in Alsace in 1976) and attendance at 23 Olympics, the amiable Olympic guru has seen and done it all.

Asked for his most memorable Olympics, Lunzenfichter singles out Barcelona in 1992 and Lillehammer in 1994 for the "good ambience… the public, the sport."

But it’s the 1984 Los Angeles Games that hold a special place in his heart as a standout Olympics in his long career.

He spent several months in LA before the Games, working across various sports stories in the build-up to the Summer Olympics. "This part of a my career was the best. I spent a long time to make the trials of track and field, swimming, and basketball with all starsof the NBA," he fondly recalls.

Speaking about his favorite athletes, he talks warmly about Sebastian Coe, the British long-distance great and a double Olympic gold medalist. Coe went on to head the London 2012 organizing committee before becoming chair of the British Olympic Association.

He has known Coe since 1979 when he broke the 800m world record.

Lunzenfichter also says the Coe vs. Steve Ovett rivalry was one of the finest on the Olympic stage, in 1980 and 1984.

As to the most memorable event in his nearly four decades covering athletics and the Olympics, he said with a laugh, "I saw a lot. It’s impossible to choose."

At a push, he said witnessing and reporting on Carl Lewis's four medals at the 1984 LA Games was a highlight, as was Marie-José Pérec's 400m gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

"I had to work very fast that night because of the time difference. It was a great moment for France," he remembers.

As to the biggest controversy, he doesn’t hesitate: the Ben Johnson doping scandal of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. "He was the first [major doping scandal] and winner of 100m." he said.

"I had to run in the night to meet Prince de Merode at the IOC hotel," Lunzenfichter said. Prince Alexandre de Merode was head of the IOC’s medical commission at the time and the chief spokesman about Olympic doping matters.

Lunzenfichter also gave his thoughts on new IOC president Thomas Bach, who was elected to succeed Jacques Rogge at the IOC Session in Buenos Aires earlier this month.

"They chose the best one," he said. "Thomas Bach has to change the IOC to give back the power to the IOC members and to change the Games to have more flexibility [in the sports program]. A lot of sports want to go to the Games but can’t go.

He added, "He has to look at the disciplines not the sports. The problem is the 10,500 [cap on number of athletes]. If he wants to change something he has to cut some disciplines that don’t bring anything to the Games."

Lunzenfichter plans to maintain his strong links with the Olympic Movement. He will be in Lausanne for the final IOC Executive Board meeting of the year in December.

He remains president of the Association of Olympic Journalists until 2014.

Written by Mark Bisson.

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