Pauline Déroulède, 34 ans, a subi un grave accident de la route dans lequel elle a perdu sa jambe. Après cette terrible épreuve, elle se lance le défi de devenir une athlète professionnelle et de participer aux Jeux paralympiques de Paris en 2024.
Category
🥇
SportTranscription
00:00 I was hit by a very old driver.
00:02 I immediately realized that I had lost my leg.
00:05 I also understand that my life before that is over.
00:09 Hello, my name is Pauline Desrouledes.
00:16 I am 32 years old.
00:17 I am a tennis and armchair player.
00:19 I am very proud to be the queen of France Bleu Paris
00:21 in the 4th of its Games in Paris in 2024.
00:28 On October 27, 2018, I was waiting for my girlfriend
00:30 sitting on my scooter on a sidewalk.
00:32 I was hit by a very old driver.
00:36 I immediately realized that I had lost my leg.
00:40 It was torn on the spot.
00:42 I also understand that my life before that is over.
00:47 I will have to fight and above all survive and bounce.
00:52 A few hours after this accident,
00:55 I was in the wake room with my loved ones.
00:57 I told them not to worry
00:58 and that I was going to play the 2024 Paris Olympics.
01:02 I don't know yet what sport I will play,
01:03 but I know that at this precise moment,
01:06 I need a very strong and ambitious goal
01:09 to have the strength to fight to survive,
01:12 to walk again and to live normally.
01:15 I think that it goes very quickly in my head
01:17 and I understand that it is the sport that will save me
01:19 and at the highest level.
01:24 I was hospitalized for many months.
01:27 I was able to walk again after 4 months thanks to a prosthesis.
01:30 Then I had a period of re-education
01:32 and I was able to start doing sport again.
01:35 I finally chose tennis
01:37 to qualify for the Olympics.
01:39 Tennis has always been my sport.
01:41 I was already practicing it standing up.
01:42 I started intensive training in 2019.
01:45 I went from a life where sport was not my job
01:49 to a life of a high-level athlete
01:50 with a lot of training.
01:52 I train between 2 and 4 hours of tennis a day,
01:54 2 hours of physical training a day.
01:56 And finally, my life has become that of a high-level athlete
02:00 with a lot of sport.
02:02 Every morning I get up for that.
02:04 It's a very prestigious competition
02:09 that has a particular flavor
02:10 insofar as it takes place every four years.
02:13 So it's an appointment that can't be missed.
02:15 When I had this accident in 2018,
02:17 I had four years ahead of me to prepare myself
02:19 and be at this special event.
02:22 It's been 100 years since France has hosted
02:26 an Olympic and Paralympic competition.
02:29 So it's true that this dream of participating in the Games,
02:32 which is more at home, at home, in front of its audience.
02:35 I wanted to do everything to get there from the start.
02:39 We are one year from the Games today
02:41 and it will be an unforgettable event,
02:43 I think, for all athletes,
02:45 but not only, also for the public
02:46 and a great celebration of sport.
02:49 There is a real challenge in hosting this competition,
02:52 the Paralympic Games,
02:53 at home, in France, in Paris.
02:56 It's about changing our culture of disability.
02:59 In general, we will welcome all countries,
03:01 several nations, from all over the world.
03:03 And we will have to set an example
03:06 and make accessibility universal.
03:10 We are still very late in France
03:11 in terms of the vision, the perspective we have on disability.
03:15 And it's true that the legacy of Paris 2024,
03:18 in our wishes to all, including athletes,
03:21 is to participate in changing this perspective on disability,
03:24 to say that despite, or rather with a disability,
03:27 we can practice a sport activity,
03:30 we can be happy, we can live normally,
03:32 but for that, we must also make certain places,
03:35 certain places, much more accessible than they are already.
03:39 So it's true that all this work that we will have to put in place
03:43 to host a competition like the Games,
03:45 it will have to stay in time,
03:47 and that there is a post-Games,
03:49 and that the general perspective we have on disability
03:52 and accessibility changes.
03:54 [Music]
03:57 [Music]
04:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]