The crowd that takes you along the avenues of the Big Apple, the roar of the fans that rises from the depths of the canyons of concrete and glass… All this, Malika Kacel can already imagine. “I’m going to take the emotion in my head, that’s for sure; I wouldn’t be surprised if you cry ” he confides in his city of Bordeaux, a few hours after taking the plane to fly to New York and his marathon. The 39-year-old nurse will have more than one reason to move.
In 2016 she was 35 when she discovered a lump in her right breast. A few days later, blood tests confirm her cancer … as she learns of her third pregnancy. She decides to wait for the birth before starting treatment. She will undergo a double mastectomy. But she will also discover a cause and friends forever. Because with her surgeon, Amélie Gesson-Paute, she embarked on a raid in Lapland in 2018 organized by the Défi d’Elles association, for the benefit of Keep a Breast, a foundation that works for the prevention of breast cancer.
Valérie Trierweiler, a marathon runner in spite of herself
It is with the same group that he arrives this year in New York. There are 19 women – and one man – who will race under the colors of Défi d’Elles. Malika Kacel is the only one cancer survivor of the lot, but the others are all interested and activists in the cause, such as former swimming champion Laure Manaudou. Or the journalist Valérie Trierweiler. He swears that long distance running is not for her. ” They more or less forced me … I had to be a partner, a bib was missing, I ended up saying yes ” she assures.
The former First Lady has been in the group since 2018. She had followed the raid in Lapland, then already the New York marathon for Paris Match. At the time, 5 Défi d’Elles runners had done the race in a very special way: they had brought with them 42 photos of patients with breast cancer. At every kilometer they brandished and presented to the public one of the photos. ” I found myself training then, first to do the women’s raids in Defi d’Elles, then this marathon now. I didn’t train for a marathon; I’ve never raced a semifinal, but all together we feel such strong emotions, that it makes you surpass yourself (…). And then the goal is just to go all the way, I believe it! “.
celebrate life
At the head of the group, Christelle Gauzet also believes in it. This former police officer, who became famous by participating in the Koh-Lanta show, created Défi d’Elles. Although very sporty, it arrives at the New York marathon not particularly sharp: it has just organized in October, on the occasion of the awareness month for breast cancer screening, four raids, from the island of Oléron to the side of the Var, each time with 120 different participants. Tiring experience for the organizer, but it is not about giving up, especially since the adventure has been expected for more than two years. The group had to run in 2020, marathon canceled due to Covid, then again in 2021, where the marathon took place, but without foreigners, the American borders having not reopened until the day after the marathon.
” This will be my third marathon, my second in New York (he had already participated in the group present in 2018). To be honest, I prefer running in nature, but the scale of the event is such that it is a great platform for the Keep a Breast cause to raise women’s awareness of self-examination. ” Every opportunity is good to get the message across, Malika Kacel insists: “ I was the one who detected my cancer; this also applies to 40% of breast cancers. They are first identified by the women themselves, by self-examination “.
But for the Bordeaux nurse it’s not just a question of prevention. It is also about celebrating her life. ” I was athletic before cancer, she says, but I’ve been in it ever since. I’m always on the move ”. One way, he says, “To prove to ourselves that we are there, that we can, that we have this possibility … When we have been close to death, we no longer see life in the same way”. On the asphalt in New York, Malika Kacel will also think of her mother, who she lost at the age of 12, and her older sister, who died of breast cancer at the age of 34. ” I will think about them a lot “. she concludes.
