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CORALINE COCO FOVEAU: IT DOESN’T ONLY HAPPEN TO OTHERS!

In ‘It Doesn’t Only Happen to Others’, Coraline “Coco” Foveau opens up about her journey from high performance and a sense of invincibility to the shock of injury, the long path of acceptance and ultimately, reinvention. She shares how she is transforming pain into purpose. More than an athlete’s testimony, her story is a call to acknowledge the unseen battles of concussion and recovery and a powerful reminder that if suffering can touch us all, so too can resilience, creativity, and renewal.

Photos: WWT / FISH BOWL DIARIES

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NO FEAR

CF: “I think I’ve spent a long-time confusing strength with invincibility! When you compete in high-level sport, you learn very early to push through pain, to treat sprains as tiny pebbles on the road, bruises as temporary tattoos and spectacular crashes as proof of courage. That was my fuel. I would fall hard, but I would always get back up straight away – as if that reflex alone protected me from the worst. As if, as long as I never stopped, nothing could really touch me.

There was a kind of pride in it, almost arrogance: watching others worry while I laughed, climbed back onto my board, and headed back into the waves for yet another round.

I had this deep conviction that nothing more serious than a sprain or a few weeks of forced rest could ever happen to me. And I had grown used to that role: the one who pushes, who endures, who keeps going. On my home island they even called me “Coco pa pè” – Coco who is not afraid.

INJURY

And then one day, the injury came. Different. Insidious. Invisible.
A mild concussion. Simple words that, deep down, meant very little to the athlete I was before. It was the kind of thing that happened to others, in so-called “risky” sports, not in mine. Yes, people say that windsurfing is an extreme sport, but I always took that label lightly.

Except… it doesn’t only happen to others. I became one of them. Suddenly. And my whole illusion of invincibility collapsed.

I spent a year in denial…still pushing my limits, numbed by Tramadol. Then came a year of convalescence, months spent in bed and with it my first mental shock: incomprehension. Why me? How could it all change so quickly? I was at the peak of my life: a day job that challenged me mentally with a team I loved, a high-level sport that pushed me physically, sponsors that truly reflected who I was, and finally a family and social life finding stability again.

That year of convalescence became a void. The moment I realized I was one of the others, and that my life, from then on, would be impacted. I gave myself time to swallow that truth. And now, I bounce back.

LIFE PROJECT!

I started to think differently. If terrible things don’t just happen to others, then maybe beautiful things don’t either. We often speak of “the flip side of the medal” to describe the hidden negative behind something positive, but why not turn it around? If fragility had caught up with me, then why shouldn’t achievement, luck, and dreams belong to me as well?

And that’s how, in the middle of this dark season, a conviction began to grow. To transform my injury into a lever. To make this forced pause into a new impulse. I began to see my sport differently, not just as a string of performances to overcome, but as a life project.

Just like the concussion itself: may it serve as a lesson to change the system. To raise awareness, so that the next person will be better understood and cared for. Yes, it’s a hybrid project – windsurfing and concussion awareness – but it is an authentic project.

And strangely, within this hardship, I discovered an unexpected space: the space of desire, of creativity, of a different kind of courage. Not the kind you prove by falling and getting back up, but the kind that holds steady in slowness, that dares to dream bigger despite fragility.

So yes, it doesn’t only happen to others. The injury, the fear, the inner fracture… but also the rebirth, the reinvention, the projects we once didn’t dare to name and that now become obvious.

And deep down, I carry the quiet conviction that from this hardship, something beautiful is being born.