If Bixente Lizarazu does not consider her addiction to sport as a disease, it is nonetheless an eloquent example of Bigorexia. Contraction of English Big (“big”) and Greek Orexis (“desires”), Bigorexia is a disease recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) which designates the excessive dependence of a human being to sporting activity and which can lead to exhaustion.
The Basque, which multiplies bicycle outings, skiing sessions in winter or surfing in summer and is also hung on the Brazilian jiu-jitsu, has only one obsession: no longer being able to do sports. “Sport is essential to my balance, it calms me, I cannot even imagine the day I will not be able to do it”, he also entrusted to
The team.
Unlike many former footballers, the 1998 world champion is still 55 years old today in great shape. A form he owes to his daily sports sessions but also to his wisdom in the face of injuries.
Bixente Lizarazu does not regret her choice
In 1999, when he was the victim of a break in the internal cruciate ligament of a knee during a match of the French team in Ukraine, he had thus resisted the pressure of Bayern Munich, who invited him not to have an operation to finish the season. Bixente Lizarazu, who still had in mind the memory of his pubalgia contracted in Bordeaux and for which he had listened to regret the leaders of Athletic Bilbao, had thus made the forcing to go through the operation box.
Having won, he had missed the final of the Champions League disputed by Bayern Munich against Manchester United, on May 26, 1999. A bitter memory. “It was very painful to see this final from the stands. I said to myself: damn, I miss a final of the Champions League ”, he said.
However, the former Bordeaux, who will win the C1 two years later with Bayern Munich, has no regrets. “But at the same time, I thought of all these years of sport I had to live, he explained. And it comforted me in the idea that I would never hurry again, and that I would never give in to external or interior pressure. »»
