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Handisport cycling: Pervis and Beaugillet, a tandem already in gold

2021-02-13T18:31:34.508Z


Seven-time world champion, track sprinter François Pervis teamed up with visually impaired Raphaël Beaugillet to win gold at


He has (almost) won everything but he needed a final challenge to push back the retirement age.

Quadruple world kilometer champion, world champion in keirin and speed, Olympic bronze medalist in Rio, François Pervis has been one of the best trackers on the planet since the start of this millennium.

👉 The French Championships 🇫🇷 of #cycling on track #handisport is this weekend at #huisclos at @Velodrome_nat but to live in #live with @ sportall_media📱🤩 https://t.co/mCJuPqDvvr

- FFHandisport (@FFHandisport) February 12, 2021

But something is missing: an Olympic gold medal.

The 36-year-old Mayenne has decided to go get her next summer in Tokyo at the… Paralympic Games.

Not selected to participate in the Olympics with the able-bodied, he joined forces for a year with Raphaël Beaugillet, visually impaired, to go to Japan in six months and climb on the tandem kilometer podium.

The tandem has been running for almost a year

This Saturday on the track of the velodrome of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the pair won their first two titles of champion of France (kilometer and speed) after a year of collaboration: "I will be 37 years old this year and I will extend my career beyond statistics, answers the six-time world champion.

A sprinter stops riding around the age of 30-32 normally, not me.

If I continue, it is for three reasons: Raphaël, the Olympics and Japan.

"

Perhaps it is the Empire of the Rising Sun that is its main motivation.

François Pervis is in love with Japan: "I spent a lot of time there when I was doing keirin," he admits.

I take Japanese lessons every week and my daughter has a Japanese name.

This country has made who I am.

I was there at the time of the Fukushima disaster 10 years ago.

It taught me to put everything into perspective.

I, who cried for not being selected for the London Olympics in 2012, spoke with Japanese people who had lost everything and I saw life differently.

"

Raphaël Beaugillet (on the left) and François Pervis are champions of France while waiting for the Olympics./DR  

Upon his return from Japan, he became world champion in Minsk after twelve years chasing this title.

“There is no coincidence, he thinks, if the next Games had been held in Los Angeles, I would also have motivated myself to do them with Raphael, but it would not have been the same.

I want to finish and finish well in Japan.

"

"I can still see a little, but it's blurry, as if I were in the fog"

Raphaël is Raphaël Beaugillet his partner at the back of the tandem.

He is 31 years old and he suffers from visual impairment.

He lost his sight at the age of 19 from a degenerative illness while playing amateur football and starting a professional career in construction.

Today his eyesight is reduced to 1 / 10th in each eye: “I can still see a little, but it's blurry, like I'm in a fog,” he says.

When this handicap hit me, I had to do something else and, as my dream was to ride a bike competitively, so it was an opportunity to get into it.

"

When we tell you that you can finally hang up a bib after 545 days without competition!

🍾🍾🍾


French Handisports Championships this weekend🇫🇷 @ FFHandisport pic.twitter.com/NWqhfQ1MXV

- François Pervis (@FrancoisPervis) February 13, 2021

Since his association with Pervis, Raphaël Beaugillet has become a full-time cyclist, with several sessions scheduled per week.

With such a prestigious but very meticulous partner, nothing is left to chance: “It is not easy to become a high level athlete so quickly, warns François Pervis.

You have to accept that you hurt yourself on your bike because every pedal stroke is very important.

I ask a lot of Raphaël who didn't have my experience or my strength when we started.

We still have a lot of work to do to make a success of our bet, but we are making good progress.

It's also a new way of working for me.

Before, I was a sprinter who only had to think about himself.

Now there are two of us.

"

Meet on the mile on August 29 in Tokyo

All smiles a stone's throw away, his partner nods: “We had no competition in these French Championships, he concedes.

It's a shame because the guys complain that they don't have a competition and when there is, they don't come.

Too bad for them: we have two championship titles in our bag and that's good.

"Of the two, Beaugillet is not necessarily the happiest ... but Pervis:" No, there was no strong competition, but I'm happy because I handed out a bib for the first time in 545 days!

The last time was here in Saint-Quentin, in 2019. I hadn't done a single competition in all this time and I missed it.

"

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These two disabled sports titles will add nothing to its prestige on the track.

but they are preparing for tomorrow that sing: “Obviously, this is not the objective of our year, continues Raphaël Beaugillet.

We are not here, François and I, to win a February 13 in Saint-Quentin.

We want to win on August 29 on the kilometer in Tokyo and we are working very hard for that.

And, I am confident that we will get there.

»The appointment is made.

Source: leparis

All sports articles on 2021-02-13

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