Paris 2024 Paralympics | They will give us chills: Pauline Déroulède

This is the story of a life totally turned upside down in a matter of seconds on a Parisian sidewalk. On October 27, 2018, Pauline Déroulède was sitting on her scooter at a standstill waiting for a friend, fortunately still wearing her helmet, when she was hit head-on by a 92-year-old motorist who had lost control of his vehicle. Transported to the Percy military hospital in Clamart (Hauts de Seine) - where she eventually spent more than eight months - the young woman woke up a few hours later with her left leg amputated. The beginning of another story, of course. "In my head, I only had one goal: the Olympics. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have lasted," she later recounted in an interview for the newspaper Libération. In another daily, Le Monde, she goes even further. "A few hours after the accident, in recovery, I told my loved ones, "Don't worry, I'm going to do the games in Paris in 2024." I don't know where it came from, but I think I had an association of ideas and told myself that, disability and sport, that was Paris 2024." It was an obsession and an idea that would never leave her, guiding even the woman who had just graduated as a tennis instructor. Or how to go from a "normal" everyday life to that of a top-level sportswoman and take part in the Paris 2024 Games! The paradox of such an extraordinary destiny.

Paralympic dream, political commitment, maximum rigor

For this, luck is finally going to serve Pauline again, as she is going to be selected by the detection program called "La Relève", organized by the French Paralympic and Sports Committee, to be able to play wheelchair tennis. It's September 2019 and she's finally starting her new life, after months of doubts, pain, re-education and rehabilitation with an iron leg. "I've gone from being a recreational athlete to a top-level athlete, punctuated by training," she wrote in Le Monde three years later. Meanwhile, her goal of taking part in the Paris 2024 Games is taking shape in earnest this 2022. Ranked 23rd in the world in the spring, she was aiming to break into the Top 20 and discover the world of Grand Slam tournaments. By the time she entered the US Open in New York in September 2023, she was ranked 15th. A first experience that came to nothing, and a premature elimination in the first round. But Pauline had settled in and won her first Grand Slam match against Japan's Shiori Funamizu at Roland Garros in June 2023.

Then, in the quarter-finals, she came up against the phenomenon of the discipline for years, Diede De Groot from the Netherlands. A player she certainly dreams of imitating, or at least modestly and partially copying, in terms of exacting standards, regularity and performance. With two to four hours of tennis a day, plus two more of physical preparation, Pauline Déroulède leaves nothing to chance, between laboratory tests, science, mental preparation, physiotherapy and optimization of her custom-built chair. At the same time, the dynamic thirty-something now does much to promote her discipline and disability in general. Above all, she is leading another battle for road safety, campaigning in particular for a fitness-to-drive test for all drivers, especially those aged 65 and over. It's a self-sacrifice that's inevitably linked to her history, but also to her altruism for future generations. Surely, a Paralympic medal would be the most beautiful extension.

Click here to read article