1989, Stephane Royer becomes champion of Paris

Very young I wanted to practise a sport. Then, I began with the gymnastics. And to perfect me, I began to make a little of body-building. By seeing me changing very quickly, I wanted to make it more. I rather fast competed in regional competitions of bodysuit high rise.

My sports successes impressed the people in charge of the federation and I thus changed room of training to frequent it a which made champions. Very fast we suggested me taking illicit products. I did not want, but in front of the others I looked like " a shrimp ".

Thus, I was allowed convince and I began to take tablets, then injections.

Finally I took veterinarian products and I went as far as taking six times the dose which we gave to horses.

My body changed, it's true, but my character also. I became intolerable. I stopped my work of accountant to be able to train more. I lived at my parent's. They saw although I changed and not necessarily for the better. My liver was very sick because of the too strong dose of injection. My skin began to have buttons which went out of everywhere. I was deformed but it had no importance. For me, what counted, it was to become bigger, even bigger! I wanted to gain the first prize of Paris, then to appear at French championships, and to pursue farthest possible.

But God had decided on it otherwise.

In the room where I trained, there was a man little " fat of the stomach " who pushed weights to lose its bad kilos. It was the minister Michel Genton.

One day, we spoke and I understood that God loved me and that I made a thing which did not please Him:

I destroyed my body in the crazy race in the anabolic steroids. I had the other sins, it's true, but that one killed me and Michel made me become aware with strength. There are produces and produces. Dose and dose. I was a dangerous extremist for myself and an antisocial being. I neither judge, nor condemn the sportsmen who have appeal to the illicit products, I say simply that there are the other things, the other values. in the life, to be well without forcing the nature..

I received Jesus Christ in my life. I began following Him. That was not funny every day. In two months I lost 18 kilos of muscular mass. I did not recognize any more my body. I sank little by little into the depression. If Michel had not been every day with me I believe that I would have felt depressed more than ever and doubtless than I would be no more this world at the moment.

I came to live in the Community at once. There, surrounded by the friendship brotherly and learning to walk in the things of the faith,I develop again a taste for the normal life. I thank God for having helped me within the Community. .  

THE BODY-BUILDING by Michel Genton

I open here a bracket to say to you that it is strange to notice that the body-builder does not practise his sport to show off, as the common run of people could think of it. On the contrary! For example, you know that a true body-builder always gets dressed so that we do not notice that he is hyper-developed?

Certainly, the young person who begins in this sport takes a little muscles, watch and showing. However, the true body-builder hides. He trains, eats, sleeps and sacrifices everything to this sport. its only reason for living, it is its sport and the competition.

Several high-level athletes asserted me that they would agree to look ten years of their life to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, what profit would they fire it?

Nobody! Know, for example, that the best, during the competitions, receive only a cup at thirty dollars, which will go to join it the others on a shelf of their chamber.

One day, I made a report on a World champion. We were in ,its apartment. He then showed me through the window the grocer's shop in front of to him, by asserting me:

" Nobody knows that I am World champion, even not my grocer! ".

Then, why all these hours of training? Why to risk ,its life by taking illicit products? For the showing? No! For the money? Either! Only for the sport and maybe also for the place on the podium! The body-building, without the drug, is a beautiful sport.