Sprinter is determined to be known as an Olympic champion, not just the first white man to run under 10 seconds

Christophe Lemaitre is famous for two things: running fast, and being white. It is the latter part of this equation that has troubled the French media and divided its coverage of a young man who overnight became a national figure after becoming the first white man to break the 10-second barrier.

While some unashamedly celebrated his achievements – and his "whiteness" – as a national source of pride, others felt uncomfortable at such jingoistic pomp particularly at a time when France, and in particular her national football team, was rocked by accusations of racism and discrimination.

Somewhere, in the middle of it all, sits Lemaitre. A prodigiously talented 21-year-old from a tiny town in the foothills of the Alps who fell into the sport by accident and one day woke up to worldwide celebrity as the fastest white guy on the planet.

In person Lemaitre makes for an unusual sprinter: skinny, tall, awkward, slightly geeky – that country bumpkin straw hat he wore at the European Championships last year sticks in the mind. He fiddles with a pen he has brought along to the interview. As we talk he clicks it open and closed, open and closed, giggling with embarrassment when it makes an unexpectedly loud noise. His attention is lost at the tiniest of distractions – a sparrow hopping beside the hotel pool, a gust of wind that rattles the parasol, a light shower of rain on a moody afternoon in Rome.

Lemaitre is in Italy to race against Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell. Whereas 12 months ago Bolt, the triple world-record holder, knew Lemaitre only as "that guy from Paris, I can never pronounce his name", now he is firmly on the Jamaican's radar. "One day he will be in the top three or four sprinters in the world," says Bolt.

Last July when Lemaitre first ran under 10 seconds it made international headlines. In France Lemaitre's 9.98sec made the front page of L'Equipe – slap bang in the middle of the Tour de France.

The attention was a lot to deal with for an introvert such as Lemaitre, and his first interviews verged on the monosyllabic. But Lemaitre's elderly coach, Pierre Carraz, said he spoke even less when they started working together. "At first he did not speak, even with me," Carraz said. "For a moment I wondered if he was not autistic. Soon, I realised that on the contrary, he was a prodigy."

Lemaitre's confidence has improved – the media onslaught that greeted his sub-10 second run has taught him to be more open with the press, but still he struggles, a fact that he acknowledges.

Growing up in Aix-les-Bains Lemaitre tried many sports but did not fit easily into a team mentality. "I tried team sports just to see what it would be like," he says in his thick Savoyard accent, his words lisping slightly.

"I thought that maybe working in a group would be a good thing for me, but it didn't work because I was someone who was already introverted. I didn't speak very much, I wasn't very sociable. When I didn't know any of the people I didn't go up to them to try to get to know them.

"My way of playing sport was always very individual. I was only really playing for myself and that's why it never worked in a team. I didn't gel with the other players."

Aged 15, at a local sports festival, Lemaitre came across a stand where kids could try running over 50m. His debut effort made such an impression that Athletic Sports Aix immediately signed him up to their club. After one year of training, aged 16, Lemaitre clocked 10.96sec over the 100m. In 2008, he won the world junior 200m title in Poland. The following year he broke Dwain Chambers' 100m European junior record to win gold at the European Junior Championships in 10.04sec. By 2010, France was waiting with bated breath to see what he would do next.

He shrugs now at the memory. "Everyone was waiting for me to do it, to run under 10seconds, and then when I did it, it caused a sensation – everyone took notice.

"I wasn't really prepared for the media reaction, it came very suddenly. I was the first one to do it, the first white man to run under 10 seconds," he says, the phrase "premier blanc" – the first white – rolling easily off his tongue.

"But personally it didn't change anything for me. It was more about just getting faster, it was just a step towards bigger goals."

Lemaitre's 9.98sec run, bettered later in the year to 9.97, made him the third fastest sprinter in history for his age group, with Jamaica's Yohan Blake the fastest having clocked 9.93 aged 19. But the media were not so much interested in this fact, more in the colour of Lemaitre's skin.

Around the world France's golden boy attracted a growing interest from far-right groups. Following his success at the European Championships last summer – the first sprinter to win three European gold medals – Lemaitre's father received a letter from the Ku Klux Klan inviting his son on a "courtesy" visit of the white supremacist group in their homeland of Texas. The Lemaitres did not respond.

His is a heavy load to bear, but Lemaitre looks at me blankly when I ask if it bothers him to be known as the white sprinter? "It's always been this way," he says. "We are used to seeing black people winning in the sprints, it has always been about colour, it's nothing new."

He pauses, before adding, "It's always just been black sprinters before because physically black people become stronger and faster younger than the rest of us. We always thought they were better built to be athletes than white people. But I think that's too stereotyped because if a white guy works hard he can also achieve a lot.

"I don't consider myself a phenomenon. It's true that I am the first white guy to run under 10 seconds, that I am the first to win three [European] gold medals in the sprints. All of those achievements happened very quickly. I wasn't quite prepared for the media onslaught that came after Barcelona."

Close friends with another of France's rising athletics stars, the triple jumper Teddy Tamgho – who is black – I wonder how it feels to have such a charged atmosphere around them. "I have lots of friends who are black or mixed race or Arab, and we never talk about colour or have these kind of conversations about superiority of one race," he says.

Perhaps not, but Lemaitre's rise to fame – and subsequent lucrative sponsorship deals – has led some black athletes in France privately to question the fairness of a sprinter benefiting from such commercial success, despite not making even the top 10 fastest men in the world.

Perhaps Lemaitre's naivete about athletics, having come to it so late, has been an essential part of his success. He often describes himself as competing within "a bubble", but starting out in Aix-les-Bains he really was in a bubble. Seemingly unaware that the greatest sprinters have historically been black might well have been a blessing: the trend was never going to put him off.

"It was only three years ago that I began watching athletics, old footage of the champions. I wanted to know what happened in the past so I looked up the old videos of old world championships. I never had an athletics hero, because I didn't know any of them."

This year Lemaitre has already broken his personal best to run 9.96sec in the early part of the season and in poor conditions. He says he is aiming to win a medal in the 100m and 200m at the World Championships in South Korea in August, but how fast does he think he can run in 2011? "My coach last year said I had the potential to run 9.90, so I think this year it is possible. To be honest I don't even know my limits yet."

That last utterance sums up Lemaitre's likeable innocence, and he admits that 12 months ago he did not believe he could be one of the best.

"It was only when I ran under 10 seconds that I first realised I could become an exceptional sprinter," he says, smiling shyly. "Before it was a dream, but now it has become an objective – to become Olympic champion."

France has never had an Olympic champion in the sprints, should Lemaitre achieve his objective he would make history in his own right, and not just for the colour of his skin.