If he is happy to respond as soon as he is invited to a charity match, especially when the Varieties Club de France, Fabien Barthez seems to have moved away from football. Unlike many of his teammates from France 98, he did not insist in the role of consultant and even less of a technician, even if he briefly officiated as a consultant, whether with Laurent Blanc in the French team or more recently at the TFC.
But the former porter took another passion, that for motorsport. Since 2008, he has multiplied races behind the wheel of sports cars. After having participated in the Porsche Carrera Cup France, at the French FFSA GT championship, winning the title in 2013, or in the Andros trophy, the native of Lavelanet also played twice the 24 hours of Le Mans and launched a stable with Olivier Panis.
No doubt less drugged in sport than a bixente Lizarazu, Fabien Barthez is not satisfied with driving sports cars or playing charities. He also became a swimming “drug addict” as he explained in the columns of The team. A passion that came following discomfort.
Fabien Barthez got closer to the merchant clan
“Following a vagal discomfort, the doctor said to me:” Go swimming! ” You always told me you loved water,
he explained. But counting the tiles, aligning the lengths without landscape to look at … For me who is a player, it seemed to be offset. However, I listened to it. And since then, I have been addicted. Swimming has become a question of balance, physical and mental well-being. »»
But Fabien Barthez does not make his lengths anywhere. He has indeed joined the club of the Dauphins, in Toulouse, where a certain Léon Marchand, son of Xavier Marchand, made his ranges. “I couldn't see myself invading the environment of pros swimmers. Everyone in their place. But I ended up daring, and discovered a family, people who look like me ”, explained the 1998 world champion.
And Fabien Barthez obviously has only good to say of LĂ©on Marchand. “Leon bathed in this environment, he could have been disgusted with swimming but his parents knew how to transmit this passion to him, without suffocating him. When you speak to the father, that you see the education he has given to his kids, you cannot be surprised by the way Leon addresses things. He's a fantastic kid “he launched about it.
