A group of five athletes lit the Paralympic cauldron that had been expected to fly over the Tuileries Gardens in Paris since the end of the Olympic Games at around 11.10 pm on Wednesday 28 August. A small surprise on the part of the Organising Committee, as a duo formed by Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec had been expected to be working for the opening of the Olympic Games on 26 July.
The flag bearers of the French delegation, Alexis Hanquinquant and Nantenin Keïta, took on their role of representation until the most symbolic moment of the Games, at the end of the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games. They were joined around the bowl by Charles-Antoine Kouakou, Elodie Lorandi and Fabien Lamirault. Three men and two women, to make up a collective that the organiser of the Games wanted to be representative of. “sports performance” and of “the diversity of disabilities”.
All of these athletes, who also have the particularity of having already tasted the joys of a Paralympic coronation, will defend their chances during the eleven days of competition in Paris. At 38 years old, Alexis Hanquinquant will dive into the Seine on 1Ahem September, to try to defend his paratriathlon title, which he undoubtedly won in Tokyo in 2021. Amputated after a tibial accident at work, the six-time world champion from Normandy is the big favourite to win.
Nantenin Keïta, meanwhile, is taking one last lap of the track on the purple tartan of the Stade de France at the Paris Games. In her early forties, the albino and visually impaired sprinter, who won the 400 metres in Rio and is also very committed to defending diversity, will aim for one last podium before hanging up her points.
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Gold medallist in his category in the 400 metres in Tokyo – and the first French Paralympic champion in the history of adapted sport (mental disability), the athlete Charles-Antoine Kouakou, at 26 years old, will try to remain the fastest on the track. Elodie Lorandi, meanwhile, will try to add to her list of achievements with an eighth Paralympic podium at the Paris La Défense Arena. Suffering from an orphan disease that paralyses her left leg, “the frog” – her nickname – tried para-rowing after the Rio Games, a sport in which she won bronze with four coxswains at the 2018 World Championships in Paris, in 1935. – The former swimmer has decided to return to her first love, para-swimming.
Finally, 44-year-old table tennis player Fabien Lamirault is the most successful athlete in the French delegation in Paris. The reigning individual and team Paralympic champion in Brazil and then in Japan, the Essonian, paraplegic since the age of 17 following a road accident, discovered para table tennis in a rehabilitation centre. For ten years he has won almost all the competitions he has participated in.
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