As with so many countries, there is currently a curfew in France between 6pm and 6am, which obviously affects people who prefer to get their training done late in the evening. A French triathlete who belongs to that group of “late night runners” decided to ignore the curfew and left his house for a run. While we trust his running abilities are good, he wasn’t able to outrun the police once they noticed him. To avoid a fine, he dove into the sea, which was just 9 degrees Celsius. The escape turned out to be successful, for a little while, anyway.
According to the police, the triathlete immediately started to speed up once he saw them, and it didn’t take long before he dove into the sea. He ran and swam more than 200 meters away from the shore. “Soon we couldn’t see him anymore. We thought he would have died.”
When they couldn’t find the man, police were afraid he drowned. They started a rescue operation, but the man was nowhere to be found. At least not in the sea as he managed to run home again without anyone noticing him.
Two hours after the incident – seconds before a rescue helicopter took off to search for him – the runner’s wife called the police to tell them he was back home again.
While the runner might have initially escaped a fine, because his wife informed the police, he was fined 135 euros, and he might have to pay the cost of the rescue operation, too.
