Today we're delighted to introduce you to Ossama Banouni, a GSEA 21B student at ENAC. In addition to his academic career, Ossama shares with us his path in the world of rowing, from his beginnings as a recreational athlete in Ramonville to his recent performances at the French Championships. Discover his story, his challenges and his ambitious sporting goals for the coming year!
Who are you ?
Hello, my name is Ossama BANOUNI. I'm a GSEA 21B student at ENAC.
What was your career path before ENAC?
I had a fairly traditional school career at collège and lycée. In my final year, I prepared for and took the GSEA competitive entrance exam to become a TSEEAC. I passed and then went straight into ENAC after my final year.
Your sporting career?
I started rowing in 4th grade, when I moved to Ramonville (a suburb of Toulouse). I started at PSAR (Poursuite Aviron Ramonville). It was a leisure activity, I wasn't very assiduous, it was just for sport. Then, at lycée, I stopped because, living in the city centre (Toulouse), it took up too much of my time between transport and personal work.
I went on to ENAC and had a bit of a yawn between my BAC in June/July 2021 and my arrival at ENAC in April 2022. From there, I was able to take up rowing again, but still as a leisure activity, as I hadn't done it for several years. That's when I started to get interested in competition. So I left for a competitive season at the end of 2022/beginning of 2023 with a licence from Aviron Toulousain (AT) and it went quite well. I started the season with the boat classes, which I unfortunately missed. However, in May, I took part in the French university championships with ENAC in the single sculls, where I finished 3rd. Then there were the French sprint championships in June, where we were rewarded with the title of French Champions with the AT team. Then there were the French under-23 championships over 2,000m in July, where I finished runner-up. I returned to competition in September with the French longboat championships and a fine fifth place in the elite double. I finished my season with the French Cup in the quadruple sculls at the end of October 2023, where we came 3rd in the 500m and 3rd in the 2,000m.
Any sporting objectives this year?
There will be the zone championships, where you have to qualify by finishing in the top 3, and then, by qualifying in the zones, I'll have access to the French short-boat championships. I've never been able to get there, I've never been good enough. Maybe this year will be the one, that's the 1st objective!
The second goal is to keep my French sprint championship title, because we fought hard for it and not many people believed in us. And then the other objectives: to have fun and try to get as many stats as possible this year !
