How Mathieu Herrero and Dag Rasmussen each carried a dual Olympic and travel retail torch

by Martin Moodie |
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Martin Moodie

Martin Moodie

Martin Moodie is the Founder & Chairman of The Moodie Report.

60 ans plus tard…

En 1964, un tout jeune Gabardan, natif de Saint Julien d’Armagnac et aujourd’hui résidant à Estigarde, Michel Herrero, à peine 17 ans, et futur papa du petit Mathieu quelques années plus tard, manqua de peu de participer aux jeux olympiques de Tokyo…

So began a recent LinkedIn post by Mathieu Herrero, Concepts and Standards Director at Spanish travel food & beverage company Areas.

Loosely translated, it says: 60 years later…

In 1964, a very young Gabardan, born in Saint Julien d’Armagnac and now living in Estigarde, Michel Herrero, barely 17 years old, and future father of little Mathieu a few years later, narrowly missed participating in the Tokyo Olympic Games.

The reason for Mathieu’s post was not simply that the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics were about to begin. But that six decades on, he, as a grown-up son to his renowned athletic father, had the opportunity to be a torchbearer both for his family and the Olympic flame.

For on 15 July, he did indeed carry the iconic symbol along the Champs Élysées, watched with immense pride by his wife Eva and sons Custo and Teo.

Father and son: Michel (left) and Mathieu Herrero, both born to run
A special moment for the Herrero family as from left to right, Mathieu’s wife Eva and sons Custo and Teo look on proudly
What better, more joyous, more humanity-laden image can there be than this? Mathieu is pictured with the wondrous Julia Cluzel, a glorious image showing two exceptional bearers of the Olympian spirit. Julia works (and is a fine ambassador) for  Café Joyeux, an outstanding French chain of café restaurants that employs people with mental and cognitive challenges.

Mathieu with Central African Republic 800 metre runner Francky Edgard Mbotto

You can see Mathieu’s beautiful moments in the YouTube video below. As he says in his LinkedIn Post: “A big thank you to all my comrades in Areas for giving me the honour of representing them.

“Friendship, respect and excellence, the three famous Olympic values, are also largely those of our company.”

One could justifiably contend that those are also the values of the travel retail community. I can think of few people who embrace them more than Mathieu, a lovely man who, by the way, is currently carrying a different sort of torch for a lot of us for reasons that can wait until another day.

Nor indeed do many people espouse such values more than Dag Rasmussen, Chairman and CEO of Lagardère Travel Retail, a fine and considered individual, who – a day earlier than Mathieu, in fact on Bastille Day, 14 July – also had the privilege of being a torch bearer of the 2024 Olympic flame in Paris.

Dag Rasmussen bearing up well after his Olympic torch run

As Dag noted on LinkedIn: “This iconic symbol of unity, peace and the relentless human spirit represents values that resonate deeply within me both personally and professionally.

“As we look forward to the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, let’s celebrate the power of sport in bringing the world together, transcending boundaries and fostering a spirit of global camaraderie.”

But was the background sponsored by Gregg Paradies?

As I write these words in a small wine bar in the (not much larger) town of Ystradgynlais, south Wales – home to our proudly unique travel retail financial epicentre at 1 Lon Y Coed – I salute these two good men and true from the business sector that has given me such an enriching living for almost four decades.

For they are indeed torchbearers of both the excellence and the values that our almost definitively global business sector so often represents. ✈

A Flying Kiwi returns to the heartbeat of The Moodie Davitt Report mini-empire in Ystradgynlais