Anaëlle Imbert: The Long Jumper from Bourgoin-Jallieu Making Her Mark on French Athletics

Born: July 13, 2004 | Club: CS Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) | Events: Long Jump, 60m/100m Hurdles, Sprints

There is a particular kind of athlete who doesn’t just improve season by season but seems to reinvent herself — one who discovers her best event almost by accident, refines it through years of unglamorous work, and then steps onto a national stage and wins. Anaëlle Imbert is that kind of athlete. Born on July 13, 2004, in the Isère department of southeastern France, she grew up in the orbit of Bourgoin-Jallieu, a mid-sized town tucked into the foothills of the Alps east of Lyon, and she has competed for its athletic club — CS Bourgoin-Jallieu, known locally as the CSBJ — for as long as official records show. At just 21 years old, she has already claimed a French U23 indoor national title, registered a departmental record in the long jump, and placed herself among the more promising young multi-event athletes in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.

Beginnings: A Child of the Stade Antonin Berliat

Anaëlle Imbert’s athletic biography begins in 2015, when records show her competing as a poussine — the youngest competitive age category in French athletics — for CS Bourgoin-Jallieu at a club meet in nearby Villefontaine. She was eleven years old. From the outset, the breadth of her involvement was striking. At that age she was contesting the indoor shot put (2 kg), the hurdles, the high jump, and the sprint-based triathlon events that French youth athletics uses to introduce children to multiple disciplines. Her shot put mark of 6.74 meters and hurdles time of 9.00 seconds over 50 meters were modest, as one would expect of a child finding her footing, but the willingness to contest multiple events at once was a preview of the versatility that would define her early career.

The CS Bourgoin-Jallieu club — based at the Stade Antonin Berliat on avenue du Professeur Tixier — has been the home of Anaëlle’s entire athletic life. Founded in 1953 and affiliated with the Fédération Française d’Athlétisme, the CSBJ has historically been a club that produces well-rounded athletes rather than narrow specialists, and young Anaëlle fit naturally into that culture. By 2016, her second season on record, she had added the hammer throw and discus to her repertoire and was winning departmental titles in the high jump and the multi-event triathlon. She was twelve.

The Benjamine and Minime Years (2016–2019): A Versatile Young Competitor

The period from 2016 through 2019 — corresponding to France’s benjamine and minime age categories, roughly equivalent to under-14 and under-16 — showed Imbert developing into one of the more complete young athletes in her region. She contested virtually every event on the youth menu: short sprints, hurdles of various heights and distances, high jump, long jump, shot put, discus, hammer, and multi-event competitions. The sheer variety is almost dizzying when laid out in full, but it reflects a coaching philosophy at CSBJ that values athletic development over early specialization.

Her 2017 season, her first as a benjamine (under-13), was a breakout year at the club level. She swept multiple departmental titles, winning the 50 meters, the 50m hurdles (65cm), the long jump, the discus, and both the indoor and outdoor triathlon. She also set what would become an Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional record in the 50m hurdles indoors (8.03 seconds) and the 50m hurdles outdoors (7.77 seconds), marks that stood as regional records for years. The discus was a genuine strength at this stage — her best of 33.07 meters with the 600g youth implement from that year remains her lifetime best in the event.

By 2018, competing as a minime 1ère année, Imbert was establishing herself as one of the stronger young athletes in the region. She set personal bests in the indoor 50 meters (7.21 seconds, which remains her all-time 50m PB), the 50m hurdles (7.69 seconds, a departmental record), the high jump (1.64 meters — a mark that stands as her career best in the event), and the long jump (5.29 meters outdoors). The high jump personal best of 1.64m was particularly notable, set at the French national youth championships in Niort in July 2018, and suggests that had she pursued the event further, she had the spring and technique to be competitive. She also placed second at the regional championships in the 80m hurdles.

The 2019 season, her second as a minime, consolidated the hurdles as her primary events. Competing in the outdoor minime hurdles (80m with 76cm barriers), she ran 11.94 seconds at the national-level meet in Saint-Renan, Brittany — her personal best in the event and a top-level regional mark. She also won the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional title in the 80m hurdles, the long jump (5.34m indoors, 5.41m outdoors), the shot put, and the indoor pentathlon (2,822 points) and triathlon. The regional pentathlon title and the multi-event work she was doing at this stage point toward the coordination, strength, and technical range that would later serve her well as she transitioned toward long jump specialization.

Transition Years: The Cadet and COVID Disruptions (2020–2021)

The 2019–2020 indoor season opened promisingly. Imbert ran 9.04 seconds in the 60m hurdles indoors in February 2020 and placed second at the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional championships in both the 60m hurdles and long jump. Then, like nearly every young athlete of her generation, she ran headlong into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2020 outdoor season was truncated and reorganized, but Imbert still managed to compete. In October 2020, at an autumn meet in Grenoble, she clocked 14.17 seconds in the 100m hurdles (76cm, cadet barrier height) — a wind-assisted performance, but good enough for the regional cadet title and a sign that she remained competitive despite the disruption. Her 100 meters was down to 13.23 seconds by August 2020.

The 2021 season brought a return to something like normalcy and a genuinely strong campaign. Her 100m personal best fell to 13.04 seconds, and she produced her all-time best 200 meters — 26.67 seconds — in May at a meet in Moirans. In the hurdles, she ran 14.36 seconds for 100m hurdles (76cm) in July at the national meet in Bondoufle, which at the time was a solid national-level mark for her age group. She was also runner-up at the regional championships in both the 100m hurdles and the long jump. By the end of 2021, it was clear that she had the acceleration and hurdling technique to compete seriously, but the question of which event would claim her primary focus remained open.

Finding Her Event: The Emergence of the Long Jumper (2022–2023)

The 2022 and 2023 seasons represent a turning point in Anaëlle Imbert’s career, the period in which the long jump gradually asserted itself as her defining event. The transition was not instantaneous — she continued to compete in hurdles and sprints, and her hurdles times continued to improve — but the long jump began to show the kind of progressive gains that signal a true aptitude.

Her outdoor long jump best improved from 5.28 meters (May 2022) to 5.71 meters (June 2023), a jump of nearly half a meter in a single year. Indoors, she reached 5.76 meters in February 2023. She was also making her mark in the 60m hurdles indoors, running 8.84 seconds in February 2023 for second place at the regional championships. At the 2023 outdoor regional championships, she placed third in both the 100m hurdles and the long jump. The range was still impressive — she was throwing the 4 kg shot put at 9.29 meters the same month she was posting hurdles times and jumping six meters — but by the end of the 2023 season, the long jump was clearly pulling ahead.

This was also the season in which she moved from the junior to the espoir (U23) age category, a significant step up in competition level. Navigating those first seasons at U23 level while continuing to develop as an athlete, Imbert showed considerable maturity. The hurdles times at these age-group championships — third place at the regional ARA championships in the 100m hurdles with 14.97 seconds in 2022 and 2023 — were respectable, but it was the trajectory of the long jump that was drawing the most attention.

She was being coached at CSBJ by Frédéric Randy and Philippe Giroud, a pair of coaches whose influence on Bourgoin-Jallieu athletics has been substantial. Randy, who also coaches the club’s top male sprinters, would continue to guide Imbert through her subsequent development.

Breakthrough: 2024 and the Sub-14.20 Hurdles

The 2024 season produced what may be Anaëlle Imbert’s most complete individual performance on record. On July 3, 2024 — at a meet in her home city of Bourgoin-Jallieu — she ran 14.14 seconds in the 100m hurdles (84cm, the full senior barrier height). It was a wind-legal mark (+0.6 m/s), and it stands as her official personal best in the event. The achievement of clearing the senior-height barriers in sub-14.20 is a meaningful threshold; it places an athlete firmly in the competitive range for national-level finals.

That same summer, her long jump continued to progress. She reached 6.01 meters outdoors in June in Grenoble — her first time breaking the six-meter barrier outdoors — and placed second at the regional ARA championships in the long jump (5.89 meters). Indoors that February, she had jumped 5.70 meters in Metz. The arc of improvement was steep and consistent.

On the sprint side, her 100 meters improved to 12.89 seconds (May 2024), and in the winter she posted 8.68 seconds in the 60m hurdles indoors in December 2024 in Lyon — a personal best that earned a score of 1,011 on the World Athletics scoring tables, placing it among the more competitive marks in France for her age group. By the close of 2024, she held World Athletics rankings of 307th in the women’s long jump globally and was registered in the top 3,049 in the 100 meters — not yet elite, but meaningfully present in international databases.

The 2025 Highlight: French U23 Indoor Champion

If there was one performance in Anaëlle Imbert’s young career that announced her arrival at the highest level of French age-group athletics, it was February 8, 2025, in Nantes.

The French U23 Indoor Championships were held at the Stadium Pierre-Quinon, one of France’s premier indoor facilities. Imbert came in as a contender in the long jump, having broken six meters outdoors, but her indoor season had been building steadily — she had already won the ARA regional indoor title in early February with 6.07 meters. In Nantes, she produced the best jump of her life: 6.20 meters. It was enough to claim the national U23 indoor title outright. The performance earned a World Athletics score of 1,042 and simultaneously set a new departmental record for the Isère department (Département 038) in the long jump — a record that stands both for the ES (espoir) category and as the all-time senior/SE departmental mark. It is, in other words, the best long jump ever recorded by a woman from the Isère department at any age.

The 6.20m mark placed her at a World Athletics global ranking of 307th in the women’s long jump, a substantial achievement for a 20-year-old. She would continue her strong 2025 outdoor season, running personal bests of 12.17 seconds in the 100 meters (May 18, 2025, in Salon-de-Provence) and contributing to a 4x100m relay of 46.52 seconds at the same meet. Her long jump reached 6.20 meters again in the outdoor version of the record. In June 2025, she won the outdoor ARA regional U23 title in the long jump (5.96 meters in Saint-Étienne), adding yet another regional championship to her collection.

By any measure, 2025 was Anaëlle Imbert’s best year in athletics.

2026: Defending Champion Faces New Test

The 2026 indoor season began with some adversity. After a period described by her club as marked by injury disruptions, Imbert entered the 2026 French U23 Indoor Championships in Nantes as the defending champion but with a modest seasonal best of 5.84 meters. In a remarkably tough final, she produced a first-round effort of 6.01 meters — nearly 20 centimeters better than her season’s best to that point — and ultimately claimed a bronze medal in a dense, competitive field.

The performance, characterized by her club as a demonstration of her ability to compete at the decisive moment despite imperfect preparation, reinforced what coaches and observers have noted about her: she tends to rise to championship occasions. Third place at the national U23 championships is still a podium performance and a result that keeps her firmly in the conversation as one of France’s more interesting young long jumpers.

In the 2026 outdoor season, she won the ARA regional indoor U23 title in late January (5.84 meters in Aubière), and the early spring competition window showed her beginning to build form again.

Athletic Profile and Physical Attributes

Anaëlle Imbert stands 172 centimeters tall and competes at approximately 62 kilograms — a build that gives her good strength-to-power ratio for a horizontal jumper. Her combination of sprint speed, hurdling technical background, and early multi-event experience has produced an athlete with a particularly broad movement vocabulary. The years of triathlon, pentathlon, shot put, discus, and hurdles work that characterized her youth career have left her with unusual kinesthetic awareness, which coaches often cite as a key advantage for long jumpers navigating the complex biomechanics of the event.

Her sprint progression tells its own story: from 13.53 seconds in the 100m as a 14-year-old in 2019 to 12.17 seconds as a 20-year-old in 2025 is a development of over 1.3 seconds — large, but in line with a genuine late-emerging sprinter who has gained power and technique through systematic training. A 12.17-second 100m athlete is fast enough to support a genuinely competitive long jump, with the runway speed contributing significantly to landing distance.

Coaches and Club Environment

Throughout her entire career, Anaëlle Imbert has remained with CS Bourgoin-Jallieu — a continuity that speaks well of both the athlete and the club. Her coaches of record are Frédéric Randy and Philippe Giroud, both long-serving members of the CSBJ coaching staff. Randy in particular is noted in club communications as a coach capable of developing athletes toward national-level performance while maintaining a strong emphasis on technical fundamentals.

The CSBJ club itself is a substantial operation for a mid-sized French city. Based at the Stade Antonin Berliat on the outskirts of Bourgoin-Jallieu, it fields teams across every age group and event family and has produced multiple regional and national-level athletes over the decades. The club’s philosophy of broad multi-event development in youth categories — evident throughout Imbert’s record — has clearly served her well.

Personal Bests Summary

As of early 2026, Anaëlle Imbert holds the following personal bests:

Long Jump: 6.20m (February 8, 2025, Nantes — indoor; also equaled outdoors) 60m Hurdles (84cm): 8.68 seconds (December 22, 2024, Lyon — indoor) 100m Hurdles (84cm): 14.14 seconds (July 3, 2024, Bourgoin-Jallieu) 100 Meters: 12.17 seconds (May 18, 2025, Salon-de-Provence) 60 Meters: 7.86 seconds (December 22, 2024, Lyon — indoor) 200 Meters: 26.67 seconds (May 22, 2021, Moirans) High Jump: 1.64 meters (July 14, 2018, Niort)

Championships Record

National Titles

• French U23 Indoor Champion, Long Jump — 6.20m — Nantes, February 8, 2025

National Podiums

• French U23 Indoor Bronze, Long Jump — 6.01m — Nantes, February 14, 2026

Regional Titles (ARA — Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes), selected

• U23 (ES) Indoor Long Jump Champion: 2025 (6.07m), 2026 (5.84m)
• U23 (ES) Outdoor Long Jump Champion: 2025 (5.96m)
• U20 (CA) 100m Hurdles Champion: 2020
• U16 (MI) 80m Hurdles Champion: 2019
• U16 (MI) Indoor Pentathlon Champion: 2019
• U16 (MI) Indoor Triathlon Champion: 2019

Records

• Departmental Record (Isère / 038), Long Jump (all-time women’s senior): 6.20m (2025)
• Former ARA Regional Record, 50m Hurdles (65cm, outdoor): 7.77 seconds (2017)
• Former ARA Regional Record, 50m Hurdles (65cm, indoor): 8.03 seconds (2017)

Social Media and Online Presence

Anaëlle Imbert maintains an Instagram presence under the handle @imbert.anaelle, where she shares competition updates and moments from her athletic life. Her club, CS Bourgoin-Jallieu Athlétisme, is active on Instagram at @csbj.athletisme and regularly features her performances and results. Her World Athletics athlete profile can be found under athlete code 14906605, and her full career results are maintained on the Fédération Française d’Athlétisme database at athle.fr.

No individual sponsorship arrangements for Imbert are publicly documented at this stage of her career, which is typical for French athletes at the U23 level. The FFA as a federation is backed by Adidas (official kit supplier), Crédit Mutuel, MAIF insurance, and Kinder Joy of Moving, whose branding appears on federation-level events and materials that Imbert competes at as a French-licensed athlete.

Looking Ahead

At 21 years old and holding the Isère departmental long jump record alongside a national U23 title, Anaëlle Imbert’s trajectory points upward. The key question for 2026 and beyond is whether she can consolidate the 6.20 meters she posted in early 2025 as a consistent baseline and begin pushing beyond it in outdoor competition. The step from 6.20 to 6.40-plus — the range that starts drawing attention at senior national level and in international U23 competition — requires refinement in the runway, takeoff mechanics, and in-air technique, but nothing in her record suggests those are beyond reach given another year or two of dedicated development.

Her hurdles background continues to be an asset. Athletes who can hurdle — who have trained the hip flexor strength, stride rhythm, and coordination that hurdles demand — often develop superior long jump technique more quickly than pure sprinters, and Imbert has been hurdling competitively since she was eleven years old. That background is not wasted even as the long jump takes center stage.

The CS Bourgoin-Jallieu club that has nurtured her since childhood continues to be her home, and coaches Randy and Giroud have demonstrated the patience and long-term vision to develop an athlete through eleven-plus years of competition rather than rushing her toward early specialization. That continuity and trust is, in the world of youth athletics, genuinely rare — and it may prove to be as important to her ultimate ceiling as any physical gift she possesses.

Anaëlle Imbert has already written several interesting chapters in her story. The best ones appear to be ahead.

Profile current as of February 2026. Career statistics sourced from World Athletics and the Fédération Française d’Athlétisme competition database.