By Alexandre Durande, French running fan

'Rien Ne Sert De Courir' : 'There's no point in running,' is the title of the recently released biography of Marie-Jose Pérec, arguably one of the greatest athletes to ever live. Throughout a turbulent career Pérec managed to win two successive Olympic 400m gold medals as well as the 200m/400m double at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and two world championship gold medals.

However, unfortunately Pérec is better known for her antics. Her eccentric nature and traits of paranoia combined to make her a notoriously difficult woman to communicate with or control.

'So who is Mary Jo? Born on May 9th 1968 in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, she moved to Paris when she was 16. A precocious talent, Pérec won her first world championship gold in 1991 at the 400 meters in Tokyo, aged 23. She then went on to become the first Frenchwoman to win an Olympic gold medal in twenty-four years when she won the 400m at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

1992 Barcelona Olympic 400m

Although she won the 1995 Gothenburg World Championship 400m, the coming of age of Marie-Jose Pérec as an athlete was really in 1996 when she won the 200m/400m double at the Atlanta Olympics, the first person to ever accomplish this feat. Not only was it an amazing double but the 400m win was an Olympic record of 48.25 seconds.

1996 Atlanta Olympic 400m

The 200m was just the icing on the cake

1996 Atlanta Olympic 200m

Controversy and drama

If 1996 marked the high point of Pérec’s career, the following four years leading into Sydney marked the slide to the definitive low point. Pérec struggled with illness and injury during the majority of these years and eventually quit her American coach, John Smith, to train with German Wolfgang Meier, a man with a dark drug cloud permanently hanging over his head from the East German drug era.

Set to meet Australia's Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympic 400 meters final Pérec left the Olympic village and the country just before the commencement of the games. She complained that she had been harassed by a man at her hotel and by the Australian press (although there is quite strong evidence that this never occurred) since her arrival in Sydney. Whilst flying home to France, she and her boyfriend Anthuan Maybank sought refuge in Singapore where they had a run-in with Singapore authorities over the alleged assault of a cameraman by Maybank.

So marks the end of the career of a true eccentric who despite all her idiosyncrasies, still won the hearts of the French public and the awe of spectators all over the world.

Pérec now works as a television commentator for major championship events.

© 2008 The Runner's Tribe