Paris (AFP)

The Games are also their meeting point and above all their only small exhibition window in the eyes of the general public. Paralympic athletes also have to contend with the postponement of the Tokyo Games due to the Covid-19 pandemic, between doubts and difficulties.

"Oh guys wake up! Still missing the Paralympic games! We train as much, we make the same sacrifices, we too will have to wait a year", annoys AFP the young French swimmer Théo Curin.

World medalist in 2019 in the 200m freestyle, the quad amputee, based in Vichy, is confined to Lorraine, with his parents.

"We ask ourselves a lot of questions. In my head I had already planned my post-Paralympic year, I had ideas, it shifts everything," he says.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in Montreal, Aurélie Rivard, triple gold medalist in swimming at the Rio Games in 2016, is worried.

"In general, the Olympic Games are played once every four years, so it's even worse for Paralympic athletes. Personally, it's my time to have some recognition, visibility, to find myself other supporters, those who will stay with me for the rest of my career. This is really the only chance for me, "she says, after fearing a cancellation of the Games which" would have been really dramatic ".

- Frustrating -

The 23-year-old Canadian champion continues to train as best she can with the means available, trying not to be overcome by doubt.

"We don't know how long we're going to be confined, it complicates everything, we know absolutely nothing. It just makes it worse here in America, we are still in uncertainty", she breathes.

Some 8,000 kilometers from Montreal, the Brazilian Daniel Dias, the "Michael Phelps Paralympic" with his 81 medals including 24 at the Paralympic Games, tries to keep in shape, in quarantine with wife and children near Sao Paulo. And he wants to be resolutely optimistic.

"I am not disturbed by this postponement. I will review the planning of my technical preparation with my team and I will be ready for Tokyo," said the swimmer.

2019 world champion in para-triathlon - a discipline which makes its debut at the Games in Tokyo - Alexis Hanquinquant was already ready for this summer.

"I had spent a very tough winter in terms of preparation, I am in quite exceptional shape at the moment, it's frustrating, it's been four years since this date was programmed physically and morally," regrets the French sportsman.

- Hazard of life -

The champion, who usually trains 25 to 30 hours per week, maintains two training sessions per day during the confinement period, between his terrace and his cellar. He will therefore lengthen his preparation by one year.

But the year of waiting is likely to be very long and complicated.

At 43, David Calmon hoped to live his sporting apotheosis in 2020. Economic license in 2016, this engineer could dream of the Games by joining the para-cycling team Cofidis two years ago. The postponement forced him to question himself.

"It was the subject of a family reunion and I had to ask myself the right questions, to know if indeed I could stack again a year to try to live this dream," he says.

"I was in a final sprint of my career and there, I have to sit down and leave for a year, as long as my body will accept it", notes this road accident victim in 2009 who suffered fifteen operations.

Upset in his life and in his head by this postponement, he does not want to speak of a "hard blow".

"A hard blow is something that hurts the body, which is sudden and which will require going very far to overcome it, like accidents. There it is a hazard in life, certainly very important, but that remains only a hazard ", relativizes the Frenchman, who finally decided to continue a year.

© 2020 AFP