Women in sport: Meï Marchisella – gymnast, coach and judge at the age of 17!

Meï took up gymnastics at the age of eight – a bit late in the day… as young athletes in this sport usually start much earlier! In her very first year, she took part in a competition in Sint Maarten. She remembers it well, as she was disappointed not to make it onto the podium, though she did manage to secure a place in a competition in Martinique. After Hurricane Irma struck, she joined the Étoiles de Saint-Martin, where she continued to improve under Grace’s guidance. Of the floor, balance beam, vault and bars, her favourite apparatus is undoubtedly the uneven bars. It is also the apparatus on which she achieves her best results, despite being just one metre seventy-three tall. In both individual and team events, she became a regular on the podium and was crowned champion of Martinique and Guadeloupe on several occasions.

Seeing gymnastics in a new light

At the same time, Meï began training as a judge. At the age of 16, she obtained her Level 1 judging qualification in Martinique, which allowed her to officiate at federal ‘A’ level competitions. It was another way of experiencing gymnastics and appreciating its technical complexity. However, two years ago, with no team to join – as several of her older teammates had left the territory – she decided to stop competing to devote herself to coaching younger gymnasts. She volunteered to train alongside Grace and, after a year, completed her performance coach training. Since then, she has been actively involved with the Étoiles de Saint-Martin, coaching the Access Gym groups. She also takes part in training sessions designed to prepare young gymnasts for entry into the Centre d’Excellence et d’Éducation par le Sport (CEES). Her dedication was recognised this year at the sports volunteers’ evening organised by the CTOS SBSM, where she was awarded the Commitment Prize (in the youth category, of course)!

A school of life

Today, she misses practising gymnastics a great deal, but she’s not interested in taking it up again just for fun. “It’s not so much the competition I miss as the high standards it demands,” she explains. Because behind the routines lies constant discipline. You have to be diligent, rigorous, and never miss a training session: “Even when you’re ill, you go!” she says with a smile. To stand any chance of reaching a high standard, you also need to adopt a healthy lifestyle and, above all, understand what’s good for your body and learn to eat healthily. “It’s more about understanding than about constraint. ’ And parents need to keep an eye on that too!
In her day-to-day life, Meï has become very demanding of… herself. Gymnastics has taught her never to give up and to do everything in her power to achieve her goals. It’s a philosophy she now applies to her studies. “When you want something, nothing happens by itself. You have to work to achieve it.”
With her A-levels in the bag, she flew to mainland France last weekend to enjoy a well-deserved holiday before heading to Grenoble at the start of the new academic year. Having been accepted onto the Licence Accès Santé (LAS) programme, she is still on the waiting list to join the Parcours d’accès spécifique santé (PASS), a fast-track route to sitting the medical school entrance exam. For that is her other dream: to become a doctor – and, more specifically, a surgeon. With both her parents working at Saint-Martin Hospital, it was perhaps inevitable, and she admits she has always loved “the atmosphere in a hospital”! She still hopes, however, to be able to continue working as a gymnastics judge or coach in France whilst she’s studying.
Her message? “High standards aren’t a constraint because they teach you everything in life, and they don’t stop you from having fun.”