“I waited until I was 7 years old before I could walk like everyone else.
And yet, watching Karim Boumedouha Guyo string together forehands and backhands at the end of the ping-pong table in his club in Saint-Pierre-lès-Elbeuf (Seine-Maritime), hard to believe.
At 44 years old, the one who still has a small chance to participate in the Tokyo Paralympic Games hopes above all to be able to qualify for Paris 2024 in class 9, which corresponds to a handicap on a lower limb allowing nevertheless a good displacement.
“Today I have no strength in my right leg.
I compensate with the left ”, he explains, before mentioning another particularity:“ On the left, I wear a size 42. And on the right, a 39… ”
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Operated for an equine varus clubfoot at the age of 4, the young Karim spent the following three years with splints and was forced to undergo long rehabilitation sessions.
And yet, in the midst of his five brothers near the Madeleine in Évreux (Eure), the young boy is not the last to kick a ball, before discovering table tennis by chance, around the age of 10 years.
"Me, I did not see myself as a handicapped person"
“The doctors told me that I had to stop playing sports, and table tennis in particular,” he recalls.
Fortunately, I did not listen to them.
“Because quickly, despite his handicap, he has a series of good results in a valid championship, evolves at the national level and even participates in the French Championships.
“Me, I did not see myself as a handicapped person, describes the table tennis player.
It was therefore out of the question to participate in disabled sports competitions.
"
For a while, life and studies took him away from gymnasiums.
But Karim Boumedouha Guyo is spotted by the person in charge of the disabled sport of the French table tennis federation, while he barely resumes competition, around the age of 27.
“I was more mature.
I decided to give it a try, while continuing to play against able-bodied people.
"
Selected in the French handisport team, he became, as a team, vice-world champion in 2010 and vice-European champion the following year while continuing to win the titles of champion of France.
But the current no longer passes within the tricolors.
"I drew a line on my international career," he blows.
Until Algeria, the country of his father's birth, contacted him.
“It was his dream to see me wearing this jersey, I accepted.
"
Vice-champion of Africa in 2018
He, who had never been back there since he was 5 years old, discovered a new environment, "where everything is much more artisanal, but where human relations are stronger".
In 2018, he became vice-champion of Africa.
“When I got home, for my father, I was Zidane,” smiles the table tennis player.
But then, he learns that he has cancer and has to have a kidney removed. “We think a lot in these moments. I wondered what my biggest dream was. And it was the Olympics. The body is tired, but the challenge is up to the character. “Karim is a very determined person. He always gives himself the means to achieve his goals, ”says his trainer, Yann Loiseau.
Despite the Covid-19, Karim therefore trains every day. “For Paris, I planned to take two years of unpaid leave to put all the chances on my side. "A period during which he will have to participate in international competitions, trips financed by his own means, counting on the solidarity of his club or local sponsors ... and on an online jackpot launched recently. With the ultimate objective: Paris 2024.