Lara Grangeon could swim before she could walk. At 6 months, she was paddling with other babies in the CNC—the swim club in her home town of Nouméa, New Caledonia. Her mother, Catherine, and her elder sister Laurence were both swimmers, and water was part of Lara’s daily life as she grew up on the Pacific island amid unparalleled marine biodiversity. She was in her element and flourished, discovering other cultures as she was hosted by local families for swim meets in Australia and New Zealand.

Long before her 55 French titles and 45 gold medals at the Pacific Games, Lara was making a splash in local lap pools. But when she reached her teens she had to choose: stay with the CNC, or travel to mainland France to compete with the best. “At the time, New Caledonia really didn’t have the right programme for me, so I opted to join the Font-Romeu training centre,” she recalls.

At age 14, Lara left her home and flew 17,000 km to south-western France. In Font-Romeu, a small town in the eastern Pyrenees, she embarked on “a high-intensity programme with 2 training sessions a day.” Her time in the lap lanes brought new sources of motivation: her coach Richard Martinez, who taught her “elite discipline”, and Cylia Vabre, France’s 400 m medley champion, who inspired Lara to “compete at the Olympic Games.”

Three years after she arrived in Font-Romeu, Lara won her first French championships, taking the cadet titles in the 200 m butterfly, 400 m freestyle and 800 m freestyle. She then focused her versatile talents on the 400 m medley event, and became the French champion in 2009, earning a spot at the world championships in Rome. It was a turning point for the 18-year-old swimmer: “It was my first selection to the French national team. That’s when it all began for me.”

Lara continued to rise as she pursued a degree in sport and exercise science, and in 2012 she won the French 400 m medley championship and qualified for the London Olympics. She describes her first Olympic experience as slightly surreal: “When I stood behind the starting block at the Games, I felt the full weight of the event. I think I spent more time looking for my parents in the stands than thinking about my race.” But 4 years later, she was an experienced competitor. She’d reached the 400 m medley final at the 2015 world championships in Kazan, and she arrived at the Rio Olympics brimming with confidence.

Lara swam the 400 m medley and the 200 m butterfly in Rio, but didn’t make the finals in either event. “It was hard to swallow. I felt I’d hit the top of my potential in the distances I was swimming,” she says. Anxious to secure her master’s degree in sport management, she moved to Marseille. There, she reinvented herself, turning her gift for endurance to good account by tackling long distances in open water.

“I thought, ‘why not give it a try?’” Lara recalls, and her open water career began. Though she had never swum 25 km, she won the French title and earned a place at the 2017 world championships in Budapest. “There’s positioning, using your competitors’ waves, speeding up at the right time. The tactical side of it appealed to me right away. It’s a bit like cycling,” says the athlete, who swims up to 15 km in a single training session, in addition to lifting weights and working on technique in the lap pool.

Pain is part and parcel of Lara’s sport, but it soon went up a notch. In January 2018, with her master’s degree complete, she began working with coach Philippe Lucas in Montpellier, east of Marseille. A charismatic figure in French swimming and former mentor of Laure Manaudou, Lara’s idol, Lucas pushed her to her limits. At the 2019 world championships in Gwangju, she won the 25 km bronze and qualified for the Tokyo Olympics by finishing 4th in the 10 km—the Olympic distance for open water. And at her third Olympic outing in 2021, Lara reached 9th place.

In sports, Lara now aspires to only one thing: qualifying for Paris 2024 and turning in a brilliant performance. But at age 32, with many titles to her credit, she’s also thinking about the rest of her life. She first heard about our Athletes Programme from Alexianne Castel, a former SNCF Athlete, in Font-Romeu, and applied through the French Swimming Federation (FFN). “I think the SNCF programme has a lot to offer,” says Lara, who became an assistant customer satisfaction manager in the Côte d’Azur Lines Division in 2023. “Unlike other companies and institutions that hire athletes, at SNCF you’re really part of the team, even while you’re off for training, and my fellow employees are empathetic and understanding.”

As a New Caledonia native and former patron of Ocean Protection France, Lara is keenly aware of environmental issues and the impacts of climate disruption on her island home. “SNCF was a very conscious choice for me,” says the swimmer. “I wanted to work for a French company, and it means a lot to be part of a group that’s actively engaged in decarbonizing transport and making it part of the green transition.”

Pacific Games, 2007, 50 m pool

9 gold medals

Pacific Games, 2011, 50 m pool

16 gold medals

Pacific Games, 2015, 50 m pool

11 gold medals

French Championships, 25m pool: 23 titles

Gold medals, 400 m medley (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2019)

Gold medals, 200 m medley (2011, 2015)

Gold medals, 200 m butterfly (2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019)

Gold medal, 100 m medley (2010)

Gold medals, 800 m freestyle (2014, 2019)

Gold medals, 1,500 m freestyle (2014, 2018, 2019)

Gold medal, 200 m breaststroke (2015)

Gold medal, 200 m backstroke (2019)

French Championships, 50 m pool: 21 titles

Gold medals, 400 m medley (2009,2010,2011,2012, 2014, 2015)

Gold medals, 200 m medley (2011, 2016)

Gold medals, 200 m butterfly (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021)

Gold medal, 800 m freestyle (2019)

Gold medals, 1,500 m freestyle (2018, 2019)

French Championships, open water: 10 titles

Gold medals, 5 km indoor (2017, 2018, 2020)

Gold medal, 5 km (2018)

Gold medal, 10 km (2018)

Gold medals in 25 km open water (2017, 2018, 2022) and relay (2022)

European Championships

Silver medals, 200 m butterfly (2015) and 400 m medley

Bronze medals, 200 m medley (2010) and 200 m butterfly

Bronze medals, 400 m medley (2010 et 2015)

Bronze medals, 25 km and 5 km relay (2018)

World Championships

4^th place in 200 m butterfly, 5^th place in 400 m medley (2018)

3^rd place in 25 km, 4^th place in 10 km, 9^th place in 5 km (2019)

Olympic Games, 50 m pool

Selected for 400 m medley, London 2012

Selected for 400 m medley and 200 m butterfly, Tokyo 2020