Perec sought to change views on French West IndiansAFP, PARISFrance’s three-time Olympic champion Marie-Jose Perec said her motivation to succeed on the track was so she could speak up for other French West Indians — but she needed to win “otherwise what you say goes unheard.”The Guadeloupe-born track legend, now 55, said that she would have loved to perform in front of a home audience such as the upcoming Paris Olympics. France’s Marie-Jose Perec, right, crosses the finish line in the women’s 200m final during the Atlanta Olympic Games on Aug. 1, 1996. She was determined to show the mainland French that their perception of West Indians was wrong. I wanted to change how we were perceived.”Perec said that at the time her fellow West Indians preferred to remain silent about their treatment in France. Perec had been inspired at the Atlanta Games by the man whose bouts she had listened to on the radio — a clearly diminished Ali lit the Olympic cauldron.
