Jean-Baptiste Alaize, from the war in Burundi to the Tokyo Paralympic Games

Simon Ruben, edited by Thibaud Le Meneec 7:45 am, August 24, 2021

TESTIMONY

Three weeks after the Olympics, the Tokyo Paralympic Games begin on Tuesday, with an opening ceremony scheduled for 1 p.m. KST.

No less than 138 athletes will defend the colors of France within the tricolor delegation.

Among them is Jean-Baptiste Alaize, athlete with a leg amputation and victim of the civil war in Burundi, whom Europe 1 met.

Leaving "the world of the dead"

Born in 1991 in Burundi, Jean-Baptiste Alaize is a victim of the civil war between Tutsis and Hutus.

He had a leg amputated, lacerated with a machete, at the age of 3.

He was then adopted by a family from Bonlieu-sur-Roubion, in the Drôme, where he landed at the age of 7.

At the time, the little boy spent his nights having nightmares.

He thinks of the war, of the murder of his mother which he witnessed, and of that amputated tibia of which he is ashamed.

Credit: AFP

And then, everything starts to change the day he receives his first prosthesis.

Jean-Baptiste Alaize remembers then having left "the world of the dead" to return to the living.

"When I had my first walking prosthesis, I had a feeling of freedom to be able to believe in a new life, in the possibility of walking again with two legs", remembers the tricolor athlete.

"I couldn't believe it, I had no idea what a prosthesis was at all. I was so happy. My parents gave me the prosthesis at 8 am and I left, never came back until. at 8 p.m. And my life changed overnight. "

He goes on the podiums

With his prosthesis, Jean-Baptiste Alaize discovers athletics and starts running, he who runs even faster than the able-bodied. He left for Insep, the haunt of high-level sport in France, at the age of 21. He specializes in sprinting and long jump, disciplines in which he has a series of podiums. Today, at 30, he is one of the leaders of the delegation, the embodiment of a resilient life.