Before a train to Lille and training in Tourcoing, Dimitri Jozwicki (4th in the 100m at the Tokyo 2021 Paralympic Games) this Tuesday, shared a time of complicit exchange with Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024. On the 7th floor of Pulse, the building of the Games organizing committee, in Saint-Denis.
With a clear view of the Stade de France.
To touch the dream with your finger.
Six months before the Paralympic Games (August 28-September 8).
To discover
Paris 2024: the map of Olympic sites
LE FIGARO. - Six months before the event, what are the challenges and projects to be carried out
?
Dimitri JOZWICKI.
-
The goal is there, a few meters away, at the Stade de France.
It makes you want.
First, I need to get my qualification.
This will happen in two stages, the first during the Worlds which will take place at the beginning of May (in Kobe), with the first two places directly qualifying for the Games.
If this is not the case, we will have until around mid-July to achieve minimums.
Tony ESTANGUET. -
I am already qualified, but I have a lot of work too.
From the beginning, we believed in this event.
And at the same time, there is an element of discovery because it is the first time that we are going to organize this event in France.
It's very exciting to say to ourselves that we are going to do something that has never been done in this country, and we also wonder how it will happen.
Are we going to be at the level we dream of reaching?
We tried to set the bar as high as possible.
We are athletes.
We are ambitious.
From the start, we have done everything to bring our little Paris 2024 touch to these Paralympic Games, with the logo, the ambition for the French team, the uniqueness, the competition sites.
We try to do everything with public actors, the sports movement, companies which have significantly increased the number of athletes they support... There are plenty of indicators which are very exciting, but we are not there yet. not.
There are still tickets to sell, promotional issues, to bring this exceptional event together with the French.
This is not obvious.
People don't have the reflex to be interested in the Paralympic Games.
We believe in.
London showed it, the others too, after the Paralympic Games, people say to themselves: “If we had known, we would have been interested sooner.
»
Where is the ticketing
?
TE -
We had a start quite close to our hopes, to what has been done in the past.
Today we are at 900,000 tickets sold, out of the 2.7 million available.
Traditionally, about half of the tickets are sold after the Olympic Games, late.
We can expect this to also be the case for Paris 2024. All sports remain very accessible.
We have places from 15 euros.
There are some great opportunities, don't hesitate to connect.
To go see wheelchair tennis at Roland-Garros, Paralympic athletics at the Stade de France, para swimming events at La Défense Arena, para horse riding at Versailles... All these sites from 15 euros.
I competed in the Olympics four times, before discovering the Paralympic Games.
I was moved, impressed by the sporting level.
Even the qualifications are difficult to obtain.
We also emerge transformed from this experience because we were exposed to a world that we know less well, our relationship to disability.
And it's an event that makes us more comfortable, because we see all the disabilities, it allows us to change our outlook a little, to talk about it more easily and to have a very positive image, because they are athletes who manage to do extraordinary things and have a smile.
It’s good for morale.
DJ
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The Paralympic Games are an opportunity.
I invite people to come see us.
After fifteen or twenty minutes spent in the stadium, we quickly forget this question of classification, of handicap, because, when we love sport, we inevitably vibrate.
When you see the 100 m of an amputee or wheelchair or guided person, it is not the 100 m of Usain Bolt or a person with cerebral palsy like me, it allows you to change the way you look at disability in a way very positive.
It's quite incredible, because we are no longer in denial about disability.
We see a person capable of…
All the Paralympic athletes I have met bring something.
They have charisma, this state of mind of fighter, warrior, high-level athletes.
Tony Estanguet
Do Paralympic athletes inspire you Tony?
TE -
All the Paralympic athletes I have met bring something.
They have charisma, this state of mind of fighter, warrior, high-level athletes.
They have nothing to envy of the great Olympic champions.
This French team is great.
The athletes say it, they all find themselves in this pooling.
DJ -
We do the same sport, there is a richness.
A Paralympic athlete is not born thinking, “I’m going to be a Paralympic champion.”
He had an accident in life, a story that led him to find himself on this track, in this pool… this story is common.
The Games emphasize that, it allows people to say why not me?
I discovered the Paralympics like that.
It wasn't in a club that I was told I could do the Paralympics, not at school, not all the doctors I've ever met but by watching the World Para Athletics Championships.
I was 19 years old.
I did rugby, football, athletics before realizing that I had my chance at the Paralympic Games.
It changed my life.
And for nothing in the world I would change my situation.
It allows me to do extraordinary things.
And to carry messages, to be an ambassador for people with disabilities.
I am an occupational therapist in life.
We can do things.
The chair, a prosthesis or a cane, that in no way defines the person.
I am not a cerebral palsy patient, I am Dimitri, a paraathlete.
Sport allows you to emphasize this.
It delivers messages that go further than sport.
You can be disabled and work in a company, have a role in society.
During the Games, a global event, the eyes of the world will be fixed on us, we try to forget everything bad that is happening in the world, that increases the power of the message tenfold.
Do you think that people's view of parasport has evolved in recent years?
DJ -
Yes, definitely.
Tony said, certain partners became aware that there were also athletes to sponsor and support in parasport.
They understood that beyond supporting an athlete who may or may not win a medal, they also relay a story and values.
Everyone wins.
My wish, which I think is also that of many para-athletes, is that the Paris Games mark the beginning of awareness at this level too.
Yes, you can have a disability and play sports too.
What is important is the awareness that the Games have generated, and what we decide to do with this awareness.
Dimitri Jozwicky
Tony, you insist a lot on this notion of legacy that the Games must leave. This term is perhaps even stronger with regard to the Paralympics…
TE –
It is obvious that what is at stake in the organization of this event is what will remain of it.
And indeed, we can clearly see that in the Paralympics, there is even greater potential than in the Olympic Games because we are starting from further away and because it has an impact beyond the sport.
On many indicators, an unprecedented effort has been made, and this will leave a legacy.
There will be a before and after the Paris Games.
Transportation will be more accessible after the Games than it was before.
Some will say that it is not yet enough, and they have the right to do so, but the progress will be indisputable.
The same goes for the practice of sport, with a thousand clubs which will be more inclusive than they were before, or the infrastructures.
I think we can welcome that.
DJ -
I don't think what's important is to focus on what hasn't been done.
It was obvious that all the lines of the Paris metro could not be accessible like that, within five or six years.
What is important is the awareness that the Games have generated, and what we decide to do with this awareness.
With Tony, we are both athletes, and in sport, when you become aware of your weaknesses, that already marks a progression.
Which champions will the French discover during these Paralympic Games at home?
DJ -
I'm going to talk about the para-athlete and mention Dimitri Pavadé for his freshness and his career, because he is coming back from a serious injury but I strongly believe in him to seek his qualification.
I also think of Timothée Adolphe, of Trésor Makunda who is like good wine: the more it ages, the stronger it is.
And there are plenty of others, young people too, and above all there are many stories in which people can recognize themselves too.
Because that is also the issue.
These Games should not only serve us to represent our country and chase a medal, but also to send messages.
T.E –
I agree.
We don't realize how incredibly lucky we are to have a generation of incredible para-athletes in many sports.
There are very ambitious objectives on the number of medals, which do not seem unattainable to me, namely to double the number of gold medals compared to Tokyo (which was 11).
But we have exceptional champions to achieve this…
DJ -
In para-swimming, in para-cycling…
T. E -
Like Alexandre Léauté, Marie Patouillet…
DJ -
Marie has a rather atypical background because she is a doctor and I find it incredible to be able to focus on these life paths.
TE –
Honestly, it’s worth paying attention to these headliners.
We could also talk about wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball…
DJ -
You have to come and see them because just because they are in wheelchairs doesn't mean they can't crash into each other to win a point in rugby or basketball.
Come watch a long jump competition between amputee athletes.
When they come to take off their prostheses to put on their racing blades, you will find yourself with a forest of legs at the edge of the track which is very surprising at first, but which totally de-dramatizes the look we have of a prosthesis or of an amputee.
You just have to see them for it to become common.
If we continue to hide this or not talk about it, it remains taboo.
But sport will highlight all of this at once, with incredible performances and stories.
Sport has the power to raise awareness.
So come and encourage us and I hope we can celebrate some great performances together.