With his muscular shoulders to make any swimming champion green with envy and his unusual rolling machine, he never goes unnoticed on the banks of the Marne.
Robert Marchant, a seriously injured former gymnastics champion who has since been in a wheelchair, has resumed intensive training at least three times a week.
To celebrate his 70th birthday, the inveterate sportsman from Champigny (Val-de-Marne) has decided to set off to attack Mont Ventoux at the very beginning of September.
And as when he traveled 850 km on the road to Santiago de Compostela, in 2018, it is with the strength of his arms that he will achieve this feat.
He has just put a participatory kitty online to help him finance the equipment and logistics necessary for this adventure.
He will be able to reuse the expensive fork that is placed at the front of a wheelchair to pedal with the strength of the arms, with which he has already traveled in all more than 8000 km!
But it must have two good batteries for the electric assistance, which in particular allows the wheelchair not to go backwards on its own on steep slopes.
Accompanied by his supporters and his friends
"I will first try by the most accessible climb, the 26 km that start from Sault (Vaucluse), and if it is playable, I would try another one in the week when we will be there", s 'can already imagine the athlete, paraplegic since an accident during a gym demonstration, at 22 years old.
The former gymnast, who started his career at the city's Red Star Club, will then leave Champigny for a week.
A city to which he has always been faithful and which gives him back.
The crowd was there for his departure, in 2018. And you only have to watch the parade of his friends, each more joking than the next, and who pass by his house non-stop, to know that there is spent his whole life.
As for the first trip, it is also a group adventure that awaits Robert Marchant in a few months.
"We will ride a bike, but we will surely be far behind him," laughs Jacques Bouanich, actor, who befriended him at the gym at the age of 11.
This is not his first achievement
In 2018, Robert Marchant chose to set off on the road to Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle.
Already at his side for this adventure, four friends, including former gymnasts, took turns by bike or driving a motorhome until the finish.
“There was a great atmosphere, worthy of the Tour de France, remembers Robert Marchant.
It went well, I was very well prepared physically.
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No wonder for the sportsman's friends.
"His main quality is pugnacity, he never gives up," assures Lionel Boni, also a former gymnast, who will be there for the Ventoux.
Robert Marchant when he left for the Santiago de Compostela in 2018. LP / CN
The following year, and in the middle of a heatwave, the friends had driven around the Loire châteaux for 300 km.
Once again, the athlete can count on the physiotherapist team of Neurologi'k, in Saint-Maur, to help him in this preparation.
Two training courses are also planned, in May in the Morvant and in June in the Vosges.
Three to four bike rides per week
“Even here, when cycling, we look for steep slopes,” says Gilou Loiselay, whom Robert Marchant sowed a few days earlier in a 10% hill in Noisy-le-Grand.
The friends travel together, in three to four outings per week, 150 km per week, mainly on the banks of the Marne.
Robert Marchant, with an average of 20 km / h, gets asked a lot about his wheelchair bike "and between athletes, contact is always easy".
Him, sport, he has absolutely never stopped.
Shortly after his accident, he was swimming a kilometer a day.
Already supported by the French Gymnastics Federation, the regional gym committee, the department and a private sponsor, Robert Marchant hopes that the public will participate in his prize pool and follow his achievement.
The athlete, who has been a member of the legal and ethics committee of the French gymnastics federation for eight years, promises: “I want to share with them and think of them when I ride.
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