In a new interview with The Mirror, Thierry Henry, the former French National Team captain and striker who made a name for himself by terrorizing opposing teams with his blistering pace, claims that while he was fast on the pitch, he could not see himself as an Olympic sprinter.
Henry was once clocked going over 24 miles per hour during a match in 1998, a pace which would have made him competitive in a 100-meter race, but the World Cup winner says that while he loves the Olympic Games, he could only have pursued a soccer career.
“Not to make a joke, but you have to stay in your lane. I could play football, it’s different, you know. I had zero technique, I was running out of sheer power,” the former Arsenal striker said in the interview. “All I know is what I’ve done. I don’t know what I would have done if I was going to be a sprinter. I don’t even know if I can even say that at the end of the day. I know I played football. But no, I never thought about anything else other than playing football.”
The striker recently teased that in his prime, he could have out-sprinted Manchester City’s Kyle Walker—one of the fastest players in the Premier League who reached a top speed of 23 miles per hour during the 2022 season and has been compared to Usain Bolt. Bolt, meanwhile, tried his hand at soccer with limited success.
“Because [sprinters] train, the technique, the way they come out of the starting block, the way they run, they count their steps. I never thought about it,” Henry said. “People always used to ask me, how quick would you have been on a 100-meter dash? And I was like, I don’t know. The most you’re running in the game is 40 meters, 50 if you go on the counter. I have too much respect for those guys.”
Henry has also just narrated a documentary titled “Paris: La Vie Sportive,” which is streaming on Discovery+ and details the sporting story of Paris since the last time the Olympics were held in the city back in 1924. His former French teammates, Emmanuel Petit and Marcel Desailly, are featured in the film, as well as tennis greats Mats Wilander and Yannick Noah and Tour de France legend Eddy Merckx.
Henry hopes that France will be able to recapture some of the same glory in 2024 as he enjoyed after winning the 1998 World Cup.
“Paris has been able to go back up and breathe again,” he said. “And see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I think that’s very important. That’s what the Olympic Games brings, it brings hope.”
Laura Ratliff is a New York City-based writer, editor, and runner. Laura's writing expertise spans numerous topics, ranging from travel and food and drink to reported pieces covering political and human rights issues. She has previously worked at Architectural Digest, Bloomberg News, and Condé Nast Traveler and was most recently the senior editorial director at TripSavvy. Like many of us, Laura was bitten by the running bug later in life, after years of claiming to "hate running." Her favorite marathon is Big Sur.
