Léonie Périault: Background, career highlights, quotes
With several WTCS podiums to her name, French triathlete Léonie Périault has home Games glory in her sights. Let's meet the Parisian powerhouse…
Multiple mixed team world champion and Olympic medallist, France’s Léonie Périault is a highly consistent and versatile athlete capable of making the headlines both individually and in relay squads. Here’s her career to date…
Who is Léonie Périault?
Born and raised on the southern outskirts of Paris, Léonie Périault entered her first triathlon at the age of eight. Since then, she’s been unerringly committed to the sport, specifically the accumulation of titles.
And she’s achieved her goal on plenty of occasions; along with European crowns and Olympic bronze, the woman from Velizy is also a double world champ.
The majority of Périault’s most glorious days have come while in the company of her team-mates in the French mixed relay team. To say this is not, as it might appear, to damn Périault with faint praise.
Such is the calibre of France’s elite triathletes, with many a world-class athlete left on the sidelines without being selected, that to achieve a regular berth in such a high-performing squad is no mean feat.
Périault has certainly earned the European and world titles – not to mention an Olympic bronze – that she’s accumulated alongside her compatriots.
But there have been plenty of notable individual performances over the years, including three WTCS silvers gained in Edmonton, Yokohama and Montreal, and her first WTCS win in Yokohama, in 2024.
Arguably, though, Périault’s highest-profile and most noteworthy individual performance found her outside the medals. Her fifth place at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 shone some deserved limelight her way.
But she’ll be hoping for a medal around her neck when the Olympics stop off just a few miles from her childhood home at the end of July… more specifically, on her birthday, when she turns 30.
How old is Léonie Périault?
Léonie Périault was born on 31 July 1994, making her 29 years old.
Léonie Périault’s career highlights
May 2013: A first national title
After several appearances on the junior podium at European Cup races over the last few seasons, Périault claims the top spot as her own with victory on home turf in Vierzon.
She follows this three weeks later with the French national junior title, holding off the challenge of the precocious Cassandre Beaugrand, three years her junior.
September 2013: Bronze in the elite nationals
A few months later, the now 19-year-old Périault takes bronze in the women’s elite race at the French national championships in Nice.
June 2014: A European silver for the trophy cabinet
At the U23 European Championships in the Russian city of Penza, Périault comes home second, pipped to the title by local favourite Elena Danilova.
June 2016: A maiden elite victory
After some consistently high finishes over the previous 12 months, Périault claims her first elite-level European Cup triumph, winning in the Dutch town of Weert. Will more victories come? Have the floodgates been pushed wide open?
September 2016: Périault earns a maiden European title
Périault travels across the border to Banyoles in north-east Spain for the ETU Triathlon Clubs European Championships where, alongside her colleagues from the Poissy Triathlon club, she takes gold in the mixed relay.
August 2017: A first WTCS top 1o…
After a series of top-10 finishes at U23, European Cup and World Cup level, Périault makes a maiden appearance in the upper echelons of an elite WTCS race when she comes home sixth in Stockholm.
June 2018: …and now a top five
Périault’s first top-five WTCS placing comes in Leeds where the Dutch athlete Rachel Klamer pips her for fourth place. Nonetheless, plenty of big guns – among them Jess Learmonth and Taylor Spivey – have been silenced by the Frenchwoman.
July 2018: On top of the world
In Hamburg, Périault forms one quarter of the formidable French mixed relay team which reduces the rest of the world championship field to also-rans.
She and the rest of the squad add the European title the following month with victory in Glasgow.
September 2020: A second world title
The French mixed relay squad, with Périault on the first leg, are champions of the world again in Hamburg, fighting off the fierce challenge of the talent-laden quartets of both the US and Britain.
June 2021: European individual bronze
Périault claims the bronze at the European sprint championships in Kitzbühel, forcing the veteran Nicola Spirig out of the medals.
July 2021: A much-valued Olympic medal in Tokyo
Périault registers what is surely her greatest individual result when, a little surprisingly, she finishes fifth in Tokyo behind Flora Duffy, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Katie Zaferes and Rachel Klamer.
Klamer cruelly denies Périault fourth place when she overtakes her on the blue carpet.
An Olympic medal is forthcoming four days later in the mixed relay when the otherwise all-conquering French quartet take bronze.
August 2021: A long-awaiting first step onto a WTCS podium
At the series’ Grand Final in Edmonton – and with Taylor Knibb enjoying a comfortable lead – Périault pulls away from the chasing pack to claim second ahead of Duffy, whose bronze secures her a third world title.
May 2022: A second second
In her next WTCS race, in Yokohama, she takes another silver, this time behind Taylor-Brown and, incredibly, ahead of Duffy.
September 2022: World Cup glory in the Czech Republic
At the World Cup race in Karlovy Vary (see main image), the fastest run split of the day secures Périault a rare winning result – and the seldom-seen view from the top of the podium.
June 2023: Another WTCS silver
Consolidating her reputation for consistency, Périault takes her third career WTCS silver, this time in Montreal. That elusive first win in the series goes wanting again, though, with the Frenchwoman outsprinted by Britain’s Beth Potter.
May 2024: Wins her first WTCS race
A 33:02 run split gives Périault the victory over Taylor Knibb in Japan by a comfortable 36secs.
Léonie Périault in quotes
On her WCTS silver in Montreal, 2023, after a difficult start to the season: “I’m just so happy and reassured. I turned my crocodile tears into tears of joy. There are still many things to work on, especially collaborating on the bike instead of suffering at the back of the peloton. And working on my England to one day do an interview without panicking…”
On taking Olympic bronze in Tokyo on her 27th birthday as part of the French mixed relay squad: “Thanks to all my team-mates for this wonderful birthday gift!”
What’s next for Léonie Périault?
As is the case with all six qualified elite Olympic-distance triathletes from France, Périault’s focus is on Paris 2024. For Léonie, however, she’ll also be turning 30 the day of the elite women’s race!
Top image credit: World Triathlon
Nige Tassell
Freelance sportswriter 
