Tokyo Olympics: the thousand and one lives of Marie-Amélie Le Fur, Paralympic champion
Audio 03:59
Paralympic long jump champion Marie-Amélie Le Fur in training on May 21, 2021 at the Jean-Leroy stadium in Blois, central France.
AFP - GUILLAUME SOUVANT
Text by: Eric Chaurin Follow
10 mins
She will be competing in her fourth and final Paralympic Games.
At 32, the athlete with 8 medals, including 3 gold since Beijing 2008, wants the last one of the most beautiful metal.
History of closing in beauty his career as a high level athlete to fully live his other lives.
Those of mother of little Anna and president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee.
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She has already had several lives, Marie-Amélie Le Fur.
As a little girl, at 6, she discovered athletics and then dreamed of becoming a professional firefighter.
Childhood dreams that were almost shattered when she was amputated below her left knee after a car accident.
She was then 15 years old.
Four months later, however, she starts running again.
She discovers the world of disabled sport, which is still hers seventeen years later.
In the meantime, she has become a benchmark, a champion who has won four world titles and three Paralympic titles.
The last two at the Rio Games in 2016 over 400 meters and in the long jump.
That's where we left her.
Since then, Marie-Amélie Le Fur has given birth to little Anna and has become president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee.
Two new lives without having left that of a high level athlete.
“
Between Rio and now, we gave ourselves the time we promised to give ourselves, that is to say family time,”
says the athlete.
Time to build a family.
And finally the arrival of our little girl in my life, in our life, allowed me to build serenely with the same team of coaches these Tokyo Paralympic Games.
We knew how to renew ourselves, we knew how to make choices too.
We stopped some disciplines, we focused only on the long jump.
And these choices are paying off because it allowed me to progress and stay in the competition which has increased enormously since Rio.
"
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New jump technique
Increased competition with a young Dutch athlete, Fleur Jongh, who jumps as far as her: 6.14 meters, shared world record.
There is also a ministerial schedule.
All this led Marie-Amélie Le Fur to make choices and changes: a harder blade on the prosthesis that extends her amputated leg and a new jumping technique.
“
In fact, it's a big change, but not that much,”
explains his trainer Jean-Baptiste Souche.
It is only the aerial phase that changes and precisely, the whole art of training has been to match Marie-Amélie's great quality of impulse with this scissor jump, which, roughly speaking, is a kind of crankset movement in the air, which allows to better rebalance the masses. All the work we did was to put her impulse back on a technique that did not really allow it at the base.
"
A choice also made possible by the postponement of the Tokyo Games for one year due to the pandemic.
“
At the base, it was not planned,
specifies Jean-Baptiste Souche.
She did not have time technically, after her pregnancy, to qualify.
And the one-year postponement allowed that.
"
And to push her to jump further in Tokyo, Marie-Amélie Le Fur will be able to count on the members of the France team and on her exceptional qualities.
“
She has a mind of steel, she has an incredible mind!
emphasizes his trainer.
He is someone who is capable of making immeasurable sacrifices in order to be able to achieve his goals and lead his three, four, or even five lives simultaneously.
It is her mind that characterizes her.
She is able to get up at six in the morning every day, or even earlier, to train eleven times a week.
Because she wants to do everything, and then she wants to do everything well.
"
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Sports retreat away from loved ones
A champion's mind and human qualities praised by her great friend, the Paralympic 400 meters champion, Nantenin Keita: “
The main quality that I appreciate in Marie is her authenticity, in fact.
And after, the rest, it is not explained.
I'm really talking about the person, not the athlete.
There you have it, its authenticity.
"
How to follow it with all the activities it carries out simultaneously?
"
It's also one of her qualities: she knows how to prioritize things,"
answers Nantenin Keita.
If someone close to her needs her, she will know how to put secondary things in the background!
And I think Marie, her family and loved ones, that's one of the priorities.
"
But his relatives precisely will not be in Tokyo, health measures require. This is the only regret fed by the mother of young Anna for her last Games: "
It is a real heartbreak for me to have to retire from sports far from my loved ones, who have always been by my side and who always are, during training, during preparation. But it's true that competitions are always magical moments! That I live with them, during which they vibrate, during which they send me their positive vibrations so that I am more efficient. But the rules are what they are, and I'm sure those around me will find the right way to animate me from a distance. Because they are an exceptional entourage, and because without them, I know very well that I would never have lasted so long in a sports career.
"
She always thinks of others, Marie-Amélie Le Fur.
And she intends to continue working with disabled athletes as president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee.
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To read also: Tokyo Olympics: Hugues Fabrice Zango wants to become the Master Stallion of the triple jump
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