Highlights: Érika Sauzeau, Paris Paralympic Games goal with wrist strength. She has already experienced the joy of an Olympic podium, bronze around her neck, in 2021 in Tokyo, with her mixed coxed four rowing team. At 41 years old, his sporting career is impressive, his personal life is just as impressive. In parallel with her life as a para rowing champion, there are her 16-year-old twins, her husband, raising awareness about disability in schools, the search for sponsors.

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Érika Sauzeau, Paris Paralympic Games goal with wrist strength

She has already experienced the joy of an Olympic podium, bronze around her neck, in 2021 in Tokyo, with her mixed coxed four rowing team. Next challenge for the French athlete: a medal at the Paris Paralympic Games. At 41 years old, his sporting career is impressive, his personal life is just as impressive.

Picardy Érika Sauzeau trains between 15 and 25 hours a week with the goal of a medal in para rowing at the Paralympic Games in Paris next summer. © Lise Verbeke / RFI

By: Lise Verbeke Follow

His weeks are punctuated by training, on the water and indoors, “

between 3 and 25 hours, with courses and competitions before the Games at the end of August

”. On Érika Sauzeau's phone, a shared calendar, “

essential so as not to forget anything

”. Because in parallel with her life as a

para rowing

champion , there are her 16-year-old twins, her husband, raising awareness about disability in schools, the search for sponsors...

Between two training sessions, we find her at the Amiens rowing club, on the banks of the Somme. In this room, where she remembers training during confinement, alone, while just opposite, the bar area was empty, “

a strange atmosphere

”. But no choice, we have to work, again and again, with the Tokyo Paralympic Games in mind, in 2021. “

I had to prove my legitimacy to be in the boat with the three others, two of whom had already participated in games

Because rowing, she landed there somewhat by chance and made a meteoric rise. In 2019, Érika Sauzeau participated in tests organized by the French Paralympic and Sports Committee, which wants to detect profiles for

Paris 2024

. “

I was already playing wheelchair basketball at a high level

.” She was spotted by the wheelchair tennis federation and signed with a club. A few months later, a phone call will change his life. “

He is the sports director of the French Paralympic committee. He suggested that I try para rowing, because a boat qualified for the Tokyo Games, and out of the 4 places, one was vacant

.” Then everything happened very quickly,

she passed the tests, discovered skiing, did her first internship in France. “I worked 10 times harder than the others, and it paid off

.”

Sport as an escape

She has always had this go-getter and determined character. With sport as the common thread. A ward of the State, his childhood was “

difficult

”, bounced from homes to foster families. “

At 11 years old, a sports instructor introduced me to football, boxing, rugby, I took my revenge, I went from being a bully to being the one you want on your team. Sport is an escape

.” At 17, she became a sea lifeguard in the summer and a volunteer firefighter. To gain financial independence, she took on contracts at the factory and began training to become an industrial firefighter.

But in 2002, while crossing a pedestrian crossing, she was hit by a bus. “

It was my left knee that took it. The doctors told me it was going to be difficult to walk again

.” After months of rehabilitation, she succeeded and returned to sport. A new professional life opened up to her, because she landed a position as an assistant sports instructor in the Air Force in Doullens, in Picardy, “

I discovered the army, a setting that I had missed in I like my childhood

.” Then, she obtained a position as an educator for young adults in reintegration, a job she did for 14 years. She makes a point of playing sports with them, “

when we played football, it was real football, it helped to be respected by showing that we are there, and that we sweat with them

”.

Continuous pain

But in 2013, a work accident again weakened his left leg, “

which could not withstand a second trauma

”. An advanced chondropathy [degeneration of the cartilage at the knee joint, Editor's note] is diagnosed, "

I no longer have any cartilage, and the bone is attacked, I have 40% of my strength left

." With “unbearable pain

, like daggers, without respite. I was on morphine for 5 years, the doctors told me it was all in my head

.” Until a professor diagnosed him with neuropathic pain, “

I finally had a word about my ailments

.”

Erika Sauzeau undergoes treatments to reduce pain, because it is not curable. At the same time, she continued to work, but her employer put her in difficulty, “

and ended up dismissing me for physical incapacity

”. It was in 2019, the day before the tests organized by the French Paralympic and Sports Committee. “

I went there with rage in my stomach

.” From then on, she became a professional para-athlete in rowing. “

It’s a lot of sacrifice, but when I got my medal in Tokyo, it gave my children a meaning for all my absences

.”

Today, the objective is to have another medal in Paris, “

the pain is still there, I have to manage it and I want to keep my place in the boat

”. She hopes for more festive games than in Tokyo, which were held in the midst of Covid-19. “

I dream of sharing with para-athletes from other disciplines, and also with an audience

Érika Sauzeau, Paris Paralympic Games goal with wrist strength

Érika Sauzeau, Paris Paralympic Games goal with wrist strength

Sport as an escape

Continuous pain

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