ABOUT · 01 / END
Bleu, blanc, or.
“It was the longest 1500m of my life, but I never doubted at the end.”
She is twenty-eight years old, and the first French triathlete in history to win an individual Olympic medal. On 31 July 2024 — in the rain, in her home city, in front of thousands lining the Seine — Cassandre Beaugrand crossed the line on Pont Alexandre III in 1:54:55 and rewrote what was possible for her sport in France. Three months later in Torremolinos she became World Champion, recovering from forty-eighth and last place after a navigational mistake on the swim. This is how a girl from Livry-Gargan became the queen of triathlon.
01 — ROOTS
Livry-Gargan, where running was a family language.
Cassandre Laure Beaugrand was born on 23 May 1997 in Livry-Gargan, a town in the northeast suburbs of Paris. Her mother, Laure Guillevin, was a middle-distance runner. Her father, Ludovic Beaugrand, was a coach at Livry-Gargan Athlétisme. She started running at six and took up triathlon at seven — a household sport before it was a profession.
From 2006 to 2011 she ran for her hometown club. From 2011 onwards she has been coached, in part, by her father. Before triathlon claimed her, she was already winning on the track and across country: twice the junior national cross-country champion of France (2013 and 2014), and 1,500m gold at the European Youth Olympic Festival in 2013.
02 — THE CONVERSION
From cross-country to three disciplines.
The conversion to triathlon went well. As a junior she won European championship golds and World Championship silvers. In 2018, in Hamburg, she landed her first World Triathlon Series gold — the moment a junior champion announced she belonged with the elites.
The 2020 Olympics, postponed and then run in Tokyo in 2021, were a bittersweet chapter. She did not finish the individual race. But she returned home with bronze from the mixed team relay, alongside the rest of the French quartet.
Two years before Paris 2024, she made what she has since called a turning point: she left her training group in France and moved to Loughborough University in England to be coached by Gavin Smith. It was, she has said publicly, the move that taught her how to win in the rain.
“It definitely helped me to move two years ago to Loughborough because I'm used to riding in the rain now.”
03 — THE CROWN
Paris. Torremolinos. A coronation in two acts.
On 31 July 2024 — a wet Wednesday in central Paris — she swam the Seine, cycled the cobblestones around the Champs-Élysées, and ran across Pont Alexandre III in a winning time of one hour, fifty-four minutes, fifty-five seconds. Switzerland's Julie Derron took silver. Great Britain's Beth Potter took bronze. Cassandre Beaugrand became the first French triathlete to win an individual Olympic medal — and did it in gold, on home soil.
Eighty days later, in Torremolinos on the Costa del Sol, she went one further. She swam off course on the first lap and was forty-eighth of forty-eight athletes early in the race. She still won the World title, finishing in 1:56:44, ahead of Beth Potter and Emma Lombardi. After a more than one-hour delay caused by a British federation protest, the result stood. She joined Flora Duffy as only the second woman ever to win Olympic gold and the World title in the same year.
“My season wasn't over, so I kept racing and moving forward. But during the off season, it hit me — I felt a bit empty. I had done it… and now, what's next?”
What comes next is on record. She has spoken about Los Angeles 2028 and a possible move to longer-distance racing in the years beyond. In February 2025 she ran 14:53 at the Monaco Run — a French national 5K road record, becoming the second French woman ever to break fifteen minutes. In early 2025 she announced a move from Loughborough to Girona, joining a new training group under coach Glenn Poleunis. The next chapter is being written.
01 / END
Continued in the trophy room.
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