Tamsin Oakley

Tamsin Oakley is 26, a secretary in New York, and left that afternoon with the laurel wreathlaurel wreath Ring of laurel leaves worn on the head as a prize for a winner. in her hands. Friendly and talkative, she smiles at everything and changes the subject when the question tightens. She speaks of the victory as of a dream, which is what she says the whole time: a dream, detective, I still can't believe it.

She has run for a year and a half, in the park, before the office. She lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, with a sofa full of cushions, a kitchen counter where the coffee maker never rests and a short hallway where her sneakers line up beside the door. On the fridge, magnets from cities she has never visited. She wakes at five, drinks coffee standing up and says the park is the only place where nobody asks anything of her.

She has light brown skin, short, neatly combed dark brown hair, big brown eyes and a clean face, without a drop of sweat. She wears the white running shirt with her bib number, short blue shorts and the silver thermal blanket over her shoulders. Her smile is tense, that of someone who practices in front of the mirror, and her hands hold the laurel wreathlaurel wreath Ring of laurel leaves worn on the head as a prize for a winner. as if it might slip away.

About the race, she says she ran New York in October and qualified for Boston, and that people say she has natural talent. She thinks Mireille Doucette is a great athlete and regrets that it is hard to come second. And she makes a point of recalling that there are people around who would rather have seen the Canadian win, and that she is not the one speaking ill of others.

When the question suggests she did not run the race, Tamsin answers with a "Excuse me?" and recalls that she crossed the line in front of everyone. She says she will speak only in the presence of the lawyer sent by the sneaker brand that sponsors her. The tense smile stays in place, and the doubt remains: a champion's indignation or the smile of someone who rehearsed the victory?