“It’s incredible to live this adventure”. These are the words of Bastien, co-winner of this new season of Koh-Lanta. It is finally Bastien and François who win ex-aequo this final of Koh-Lanta, Le Totem maudit. The two men, respectively members of the yellow and red teams, will therefore share the 100,000 euros promised to the winner. An unprecedented final with three finalists and two winners which strongly divided the public, but which seemed to delight the two men. Bastien spoke about this surprising result and about his entire adventure with Planet.fr.
“I am not at all disappointed to share this victory because François is someone with whom I share a lot of human values and the sporting side too. We liked each other straight away, we talked while going fishing together, playing the harpoon”, tells us the 32-year-old rope access technician from the Rhône. “At the end, when the victory was announced, we were very happy both,” he says.
A joy indeed shared by his sidekick François, the Hérault firefighter. “Finishing together is wonderful. Both winners are wonderful, it’s even better than alone to share our joy together. We’re really happy tonight,” said the chef. red team with the Koh-Lanta team after their shared victory.
Even if he went to the end of himself by winning the curse of the cursed post, Bastien was therefore the second to fall from the posts after François. Despite his great qualities as a tightrope walker, the hour and a half struggling on a platform smaller than his opponents because of the cursed dagger exhausted all his energy. “On an equal footing, I could have fought for first place with great odds, but struggling for an hour and a half before beating the curse made me much weaker. I tried to move my feet to find blood but it was very complicated, I had immense pain under the arch of the foot”, remembers with Planet the adventurer.
Despite this failure, the young mountain enthusiast was lucky enough to be chosen by François after the victory of Géraldine, who against all odds imposed on the final test after her encouraging second place in the orientation test. . A not very strategic choice which did not surprise him that much the former ski season. “In the end, I didn’t think about colors at all, it was just about talent. So when he chose me, I thought it was deserved given the career I had,” says Bastien. According to him, “when (François) was chosen, he said to himself that there was no good victory without a good fight and he chose the person who most deserved to win in his eyes”.
The adventurer believes in destiny and in his star and is proud of his adventure. “You will understand, on the island, we never really control our destiny. Successions of surprises and blows of fate emerge and divert the story that we had thought”, he explained recently on his Instagram account.
This backpacker accustomed to backpacking has managed to achieve unanimity on the yellow camp as on the reunited one. A character as calm as it is full of humor that won the support of all adventurers. “I played with my sympathy capital through my good nature by often walking away from problems. I’m a nice and funny person and I’m like that in my everyday life so I didn’t do the vote race and I continued to play on my sympathy capital and it went well in the end,” says Bastien.
When asked if he is not too disappointed to have lost the victory because of the vote of Olga, his former teammate in the yellows, who could have tipped the votes and who chose Géraldine, Bastien makes a once again proof of a lot of hindsight and fair play. “I was a little surprised but I quickly understood that she had created affinities with Géraldine. I myself created more affinities with Fouzi in a short time than with Olga during our whole adventure. among the yellows. I would have preferred to see Fouzi come back from an eliminatory round than Olga for exactly the same reasons”, he concludes without resentment.
He does not retain any animosity towards Nicolas, the infiltrated agent of the reds among the yellows. “I realized it while watching the episodes, I didn’t see at all what was going on at the time. I find that Nico assumed his alliances on set”, he confides to Planet. Bastien believes that he was loyal to his first affinities with the greens and less with the yellows, but for the winner of Koh-Lanta, the Totem Maudit, “that’s how it is the game”. He holds no grudge against his former adventure companion with whom he got along very well. The cordist even assures that “Nicolas is a very nice person and a wonderful father”.
Koh-Lanta is above all a human adventure and it is the essence of what Bastien keeps after his victory. We see it a lot on social networks with former adventurers. He managed to create real and solid friendships on the game with in particular “Colin, Jean-Charles, François, Louana, Anne-Sophie, Olga”. “We still see each other often. We have a good group and it’s very pleasant. We realized that beyond this adventure, which could have opposed us, all that really brought us closer. We makes the difference between the things of the game and life outside the game. We are a great team and we take great pleasure in seeing each other again and organizing small projects together”, confides the rope access technician to Planet. We also saw them together at the Cannes Film Festival.
Beyond the weekends with each other, the “Koh-Pains”, as the former adventurers are often called, also have “projects, in particular sports, to go running from right to left, as in Guadeloupe or events like the Spartan race and festivals”. “The beauty of a friendship cannot be explained, it is lived”, wrote Bastien in particular on Instagram in the caption of a photo with all his adventure friends near a swimming pool.
Bastien also realized and built with his hands a bench in Fuste with two other adventurers, Jean-Charles and Colin. A bench seen as ““the symbol of a union in the service of a compelling cause”. Their work was indeed sold at auction and the funds raised will be donated in full to the association Bertrand Kamal, adventurer of the season of “Koh-Lanta, the 4 Lands” who died suddenly of pancreatic cancer.
Koh-Lanta is an incredibly difficult adventure both physically and mentally. If Bastien has always known how to keep his mind, there was a moment when he thought of giving up. “The only time when I said to myself: ‘There I want to crack’, it is the moment when it was necessary to balance pucks, it is the last immunity test. It was the worst memory because it was hell, it was really the ordeal which lasted super long, 1h40 I think, but it could have lasted indefinitely”, painfully remembers the adventurer.
As for the best moment, for Bastien, “the best memory is simply celebrating as a team”. “Collective victories were the best because you win as a team, you share a crazy moment, it’s collegial. At that point, nothing matters except team cohesion. Victories in team, for me, it’s the strongest”, specifies the young man from the Rhône.
Koh-Lanta is an acceleration of life. In the last episode, Bastien explains before the test of the posts that it has changed his priorities and that he wishes to get closer to his loved ones. “Before I saw them when I had time and now I block periods for them, I take the time to see them. It has changed the frequency with which I see my family,” the young man told us. On the show, he also talked a lot about his ex-girlfriend, who pushed him to enroll in the Koh-Lanta program. “We still have the same relationship, he’s someone I enjoy seeing and calling from time to time on the phone. He’s become a friend that I care about,” says Bastien.
With the 50,000 euros from his victory, Bastien also intends “to benefit (s) his parents and (s) his family which is growing a little bit”. “Do a weekend I imagine, then keep a little bit of it. Maybe a pied-à-terre project somewhere or a sports project, I don’t know”, details the adventurer.
Despite his status as eternal second in many events, Bastien remains very proud of his career. He finally managed to win three individual events after reunification. “I knew I could win at any time. I sometimes came across a François who had been doing this since he was little or Louana who is really very strong, but often it didn’t come down to much to be first. In the end I I liked my second place and when I think about it I was third once I think, was second a lot, sometimes first. adventurer.
Regarding the only time he lost his legendary calm on the orientation test, when he realized he had taken the wrong color while looking at the beacon, the young man is ironic about his lack of attention. “Before leaving my friend Benjamin said to me: ‘Bast if you go to orientation, don’t get the wrong color’… And I got the wrong color and suddenly when I noticed that I said to myself : ‘But I’m dumb!’. I was angry because it’s tiring. You should know that between Denis and the beacon, there was 1 km so coming back to the orientation table was horrible”, Bastien still remembers.
Despite the hardness of the adventure, Bastien even plans to return to Koh-Lanta in order to challenge his title. “If the future takes me to a future All Stars, I would say why not. In any case, I am no longer closed to this idea”, specifies the adventurer. “It’s still incredible to live this adventure, the tests are crazy so why not try again and meet new people. As for the other shows, we’ll see what they offer me at the time”, concludes the winner of Koh- Lanta, The cursed totem.
