June 13, 2014 (Montreal, QC) – A movie inspired by the cycling career of admitted doper, Genevieve Jeanson, opens in cinemas today. La Petite Reine stars Laurence Leboeuf playing the role of Julie Arseneau, a character inspired by Jeanson, once called “The Golden Girl” of Canadian cycling. Jeanson dazzled fans with her exploits before she admitted in 2007 to doping with banned blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO) “almost all of her career.”
“The film is neither a biography of Ms Jeanson nor a journalistic investigation,” explained producer Richard Lalonde of Forum Films to Montreal’s La Presse newspaper. The subject touches on the doping, trickery, and lies that some professional cyclists and other athletes have lived with. Lalonde speaks about working in transparency with the disgraced cyclist who shared private moments of her career to facilitate making the movie.
The film, originally entitled, Le temps que durent les roses, was directed by Alexis Durand Brault based on a script by Sophie Lorain and Catherine Léger. Other key actors include Patrice Robitaille, Denis Bouchard and Josée Deschênes. In the opening scene, Leboeuf and Robitaille (playing Arseneau’s coach) must deal with a surprise visit by an inspector for an out-of-competition doping control just after Arseneau has doped up.
Jeanson’s cycling career spanned from 1999-2005, by coincidence the same years that Lance Armstrong was winning the Tour de France. In 2012 USADA accused Armstrong of running “the most sophisticated, professional and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen” and in 2013, he confessed. Jeanson admitted her continuing admiration for Armstrong in a 2012 Radio Canada interview despite her revelations about her own doping and the growing case against Armstrong.
The movie’s producer also told La Presse newspaper that it would have been impossible to produce La Petite Reine without the cooperation of the Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.) which organizes the Tour de France and Belgium’s La Flèche Wallonne. Some scenes of the movie were actually filmed during the live races.
The film’s soundtrack is in French with some cinemas also offering English subtitles.
La Presse movie review (French) here.
The Gazette movie review (English) here.
Pedal’s 2007 report on Jeanson’s confession here.