On Saturday 7 September, a new page will be turned in the history of French athletics at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). At 39 years old, Nantenin Keïta, a 400m specialist who is taking part in his fifth Paralympic Games, will attempt to climb onto the podium for the last time in the T13 category, reserved for visually impaired athletes.
Since birth, Nantenin Keïta has suffered from albinism, a genetic disease that depigments his skin and causes visual problems. A member of the French national team for two decades, “Nanto”, his nickname, has one of the best records in French sport, in all disciplines combined, with four Paralympic medals, including gold at the 2016 Rio Games.
At an age when most sprinters have long since hung up their points, the Franco-Malian, who announced her retirement after her failure in Tokyo in 2021, has changed her mind. “Sharing the event with family, friends and the French athletics team”Since then, he has been showered with honours.
In 2023, she became co-captain of the French Paralympic athletics team with sprinter Trésor Makunda. In July, she was elected by her peers as the flag bearer of the French Paralympic delegation. Before that, she had also been designated as the first Olympic torch bearer on French soil, on May 8.
“A big sister role”
“He is someone that everyone likes.testifies Dimitri Demonière, his physical trainer. She always has the right word, the attention that changes everything. She is a role model for young people, especially for her longevity at the highest level. » Her friend Assia El Hannouni, a former sprinter with eight Paralympic gold medals, says nothing more: “She plays the role of the older sister. She is someone who is cheerful, always smiling, always accessible, who unites energies, who says things without irony.”
Nantenin Keïta took part in his first international competition in 2002, during the World Championships in Athletics for the Disabled in Villeneuve-d’Ascq (North). “At that time there were very few women in para-athletics. She is one of those who paved the way”recalls Patrice Gergès, former national technical director of the French Athletics Federation, who discovered her when she was 16 and gave her her first pair of spiked shoes.
Twenty-two years later, her return to competition after a two-year absence is a big gamble for the sprinter, whose career was cut short by injuries. “My body is tired, but I have learned to deal with it”She described World in the spring during a training session at the National Institute of Sport, Experience and Performance (INSEP) in the Bois de Vincennes in Paris, a place he discovered at the age of 17.
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