Loïc Samen had been a fighter long before he took down other Greco-Roman wrestlers at his local sports centre in Sotteville, Normandy. He had to work harder than most people just to learn how to walk. “I was born with malformations in my feet,” says the native of Yaoundé, Cameroon. At age 2, after his first surgery, he left home to join an aunt in Barcelona, where he was treated by Spanish surgeons. Two operations later, he and his mother arrived in Normandy, where the 4-year-old would undergo a final procedure and learn to walk.

“The doc told my mother that it was important for my development to do some kind of sport regularly,” says Loïc, and he was unusually big and strong already. He tried judo without much conviction, and later spent time swimming laps at the Sotteville sport complex.  He also had a fiery temperament and used violence as a defence mechanism. “When other kids made fun of my feet, I fought them.”

On the other side of the sport complex, wrestling coach Gary Bouvet quickly spotted the kid who was always ready to stand up for himself. “He saw me as very fit,” says Loïc, “and repeatedly suggested that I come give wrestling a try. I always refused. Then one day he goaded me. ‘I know you’ll never come,’ he said. I went.” He was 11 years old. “Gary stood me opposite a guy who weighed less than I did, and said, ‘Try to put him on the ground.’ I never managed it. I was intrigued. I thought, “This guy weighs less than I do, but he threw me in the air. I was fascinated by his flexibility and the way he used his strength.”

Loïc went back every week. Gary Bouvet and Christophe Delamare, who managed the wrestling section of the Sotteville complex, saw the boy’s potential and paid for his registration. His mother, a carer and former karateka, was raising Loïc and his 2 brothers on her own. “She called us her little ‘warriors’,” he says with a smile. “When I was a kid, I watched her get up every day and go to work, and get us out of bed to go to school.  You have to respect that. She taught me to love doing hard things, because that’s how you move up in life.”

Less than 3 years after he started at the Sotteville sport complex, Loïc became the French national freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling champion in his age category. He’d also begun to attract attention from the French national team. At age 13, he left Normandy to train at the Dijon Centre for Sports Resources, Expertise and Performance (CREPS) in Burgundy. There he was coached by a wrestling legend—Steeve Guénot, the 66-kg Greco-Roman wrestling gold medallist at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Guénot guided Loïc as he specialized in the Greco-Roman style, which—unlike freestyle wrestling—requires practitioners to take their opponents down using holds above the waist only. “I liked this type of fight right away, and it’s a good match for my endurance and upper body strength,” says Loïc. “To me,” he adds, “the Greco-Roman style is to wrestling what the English style is to boxing—the noble art.”

At CREPS, Loïc trained heavily to withstand the intensity of wrestling matches, which consist of two 3-minute periods with 30 seconds of recovery in between, and include time on the mat. Wrestlers win matches by pinning both of their opponent’s shoulders to the ground (a “fall”) or by scoring more points than their opponent (“technical superiority”). Loïc’s specialization and hard work paid off in 2017, when he placed 7th at the European Junior Championships. His strong showing fulfilled everyone’s hopes, and in 2019 he won a spot at the French National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP)—the Holy Grail for elite French athletes.

There he met Mélonin Noumonvi, a world champion Greco-Roman wrestler and 3-time Olympian who would become Loïc’s mentor. “He’s my role model. We were training in the same category when I arrived at INSEP, but he didn’t give me the ‘Scarface’ glare when I arrived,” he jokes. “On the contrary—I began to emulate him. He inspired a lot of my wrestling and my movements. He took me under his wing, and showered me with valuable advice, first as a wrestler, and later as my coach when his own career was over.”

At INSEP, Loïc kept an intensive weekly schedule: running, rope climbing, overall fitness work, technique, wrestling, matches and more. His intensive training paid off in 2020, when he won the French national 97-kg championship in the Senior category. The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic) were only a year away, and it was reasonable to think that he could shine at the qualifying tournament and win a ticket to Japan. But a meniscus injury forced him to stop training for 7 months, dashing his Olympic hopes.

Loïc’s ambitions go well beyond the mat. Even while he was training, he worked towards a 2-year sales management degree (BTS Management Commercial Opérationnel). “Having a diploma is important to my mother. And in a sport like mine, it’s critical to think about my next act,” he says. A conversation with his friend Harold Correa—a triple jumper and member of the SNCF Athletes Programme—inspired Loïc to work towards a special employment agreement (CIP) with SNCF Group.

“I’d already been approached by a variety of professionals, but working for SNCF was especially important. Why? Because I know I’ll have career growth opportunities thanks to the wide variety of jobs—and because the Group offers an eco-friendly alternative to other forms of transport. Put like that, it doesn’t sound like much, but working for an outfit that’s making things better really appeals to me,” says Loïc, who cares deeply about climate change.

He began work in April 2023 as a multi-skilled customer care agent in the sales office at Saint-Lazare station in Paris, where he’s using his training to give passengers the best possible experience, but also to manage the sales unit. “We work to keep the lines from getting too long and the office from getting too crowded.” Nicknamed “the star” by his coworkers, Loïc quickly found a natural fit in his new workplace. “I’m proud to work with them and to bring the energy of an athlete to my job. It’s like training: when you show up, you need to give it everything you’ve got. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time,” he says.

It’s a philosophy of life that this SNCF Athlete continues to practice in his sport, relentlessly pursuing excellence in service of a clearly defined ambition. “I won’t give up until I’ve given absolutely everything I’ve got to become a world champion and an Olympic champion—that’s obvious!