Running News Daily

French runner stops to eat a crepe before winning race

The European 5K record holder, Jimmy Gressier, decided to grab some late-race nutrition at the French Cross Country Championships.

Jimmy Gressier took the win in the senior men’s race at the French Cross Country Championships in Carhaix, France, on Sunday, slowing just before the finish to grab a crepe from a spectator on the sidelines. He then proceeded to break the tape while chowing down on his unexpected snack. Gressier has become pretty well known for this type of late-race antics, and his quirky finish-line celebration on Sunday was one of several that the world has seen throughout his career. 

A golden crepe 

In a video clip of Gressier’s win, it’s unclear whether he had planned to grab this crepe all along, or if it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. (Hopefully that was a friend who offered him the crepe, because otherwise that’s just sort of gross.) He had a lead of a few seconds and looked as though he was moving to give the crowd of spectators some high fives, but instead, he made contact with one person and came away with a crepe.

After that, Gressier took one look back, apparently decided that he had enough of a lead and slowed down to enjoy his snack and cruise into the finish line. After crossing the line, he held the crepe up in celebration before turning back to congratulate second-place finisher Markus Georger. Perhaps the funniest moment in all of this came when Gressier offered Georger and third-place runner Fabien Palcau bites of the crepe. Georger politely declined, but Palcau took Gressier up on the strange show of sportsmanship and had a bite. 

Nothing new

This may be the oddest thing that Gressier has done at a finish line so far in his career, but it’s not the first time he’s put on a show in the final metres of a race. At the 2018 European Cross Country Championships, he face-planted at the line, falling into the tape to take the win. In 2019, once again at the European Cross Championships, he did his best impression of a race walker in the closing metres of the run.

At the 2021 French Cross Country Championships, Gressier had what he thought was a healthy lead in the final couple hundred metres, so he slowed to celebrate with the spectators and an event mascot. After a few moments of this premature celebration, Gressier looked back to find that his competitors were much closer than he had anticipated, so he picked up the pace once more to lock up the win.  

Gressier’s career

At 25, Gressier is still quite young, but he has amassed several big accomplishments in his time as an elite runner. From 2017 to 2019, he won U23 gold in three straight  European Cross Country Championships, and he added two more U23 European titles in 2019 in the 5,000m and 10,000m.

He is the French record holder in the 10K with a PB of 27:33 and he owns the European 5K record of 13:12 (he ran both of those results in February). He is undoubtedly one of the best runners France has ever produced, and it looks like he’s only going to continue to add to his already impressive resume, which means we’ll likely get to see many more strange and funny celebrations from him in the years to come.