French police announced Tuesday that they were searching for a track and field athlete from the African nation of Benin, saying Odile Ahouanwanou had not been seen in a week.
The 33-year-old was last seen dropping off her child at the home of a carer on Sept. 10, police in Normandy, northern France, announced in a post on social media, adding that she had not returned to collect her son.
In their appeal for information on the “worrying disappearance”, the national police said Ahouanwanou was last known to be traveling in a Volkswagen Polo.
French Police
She finished eighth in the heptathlon at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar. Before committing to athletics, Ahouanwanou was an elite soccer player who played as a young woman for Benin’s national team.
“I was also doing athletics in primary and secondary school,” she told BBC Sport Africa in 2022. “I would often beat everyone but I just couldn’t see myself in athletics — it was all about football… Until one day in 2007, I became Benin national champion in the high jump and everything changed.”
In early September, Ugandan distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei died in Kenya after being set on fire by her former boyfriend, weeks after competing at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
Her ex-boyfriend later died of his own injuries sustained in the attack.