Almost everything about Camille French’s punt at a top Paris Olympics placing speaks to the power of great support.
Camille in Doha 2019 after qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics, flanked by her Cambridge-based parents Cheryl and Lloyd Buscomb. They will be with her again in Paris.
When the 33-year-old athlete left for France last week, part of the swell of national pride going with her will be a wave emanating from Cambridge. Although Hamilton is where she was born and where she now lives with husband Cameron French and their toddler Sienna, Cambridge is where she was raised as Camille Buscomb, where she was educated, and where her early talent was spotted.
Camille promised herself Paris after her Olympic debut in Tokyo 2020 went awry. Because of an airplane seating plan that put her next to a Covid positive passenger, she was placed under tight close-contact restrictions which meant she was isolated for much of the games. Training was severely curtailed, and Camille ended up under-performing in both her 5000m and 10,000 women’s races.
It was then, driven by a dogged determination familiar to her Cambridge-based parents Cheryl and Lloyd Buscomb, that she committed to being 100 percent ready for Paris.
Camille’s early schooling was at Cambridge East and Cambridge Middle schools, and it was while at the latter that her athletics career started with a visit to the Cambridge Athletic Track. Lloyd remembers being approached by coach Graham Turner who thought Camille would make a good middle distance runner. He took her on and remained her coach until she took up an athletic scholarship at Purdue University in the United States after finishing her year 13 at St Peter’s School.
A raft of championships followed, taking Camille all over the country then further afield. She competed in the 2007 Australian Youth Olympic Festival, won silver in the 2015 World University Games, and participated in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. Her parents were committed to taking her where she needed to go, watching her race in London and in Doha where she qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
Camille was by then engaged to New Zealand 400m hurdler and Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games representative Cameron French and new plans were being made.
“We wanted to have a family … I thought I’ll have a baby now and then get back into training for the Paris Olympics,” she said.
Sienna’s birth just over two years ago, and her decision to change to the marathon, catapulted Camille into a new style of training with coach Nic Bideau. Family stepped in to help navigate her training schedule; Camille scored her first post-motherhood success when she ran under the Olympic qualifying standard at the Valencia marathon last year.
Now it’s all go for France, and there to cheer her on will be proud parents Cheryl and Lloyd.
“As we stand on August 11 on the streets of Paris, as Camille joins the other 79 elite women’s distance runners, the previous two years of disappointments and successes will dissolve into tears of pride and joy,” he said. “We feel so blessed to experience a moment that so few families can share.”
Camille, Cameron and little Sienna … la famille French … will be in France to support Camille who left last week for her marathon run at the Paris Olympics. Photo by Viv Posselt
