Aurélie Aubert in gold, and boccia for cooking – Libération

2024-09-02 12:50:43

With his victory in the BC1 category on Monday, September 2, the Normandy player brought France his first Olympic medal in the discipline. Your desire: to help bring your sport out of the secret.

At the age of 27, on the occasion of his very first Paralympic Games, Aurélie Aubert neither more nor less entered the history of his discipline, boccia (cousin of pétanque), by winning the very first French Olympic medal in the discipline (1) . While ranked twelfth in the world and seventh in Europe, she effortlessly got the upper hand over Singaporean Jeralyn Tan Yee Ting, world number 2, who had beaten her soundly in the group stage 6-1.

From the first throw, Aubert matched and then better, with incredible precision: the first round won 2-0. In the second, your throwing becomes bold, for example to attack out and take the “jack”, the equivalent of the Jack, to your side: 3-0. But the Singaporean tightened things up in the third salvo: 3-0. The fourth and final round, with 5 for Aubert and 3 for his opponent, stopped the breath in the South Arena, and the suspense ended. Aubert had the lead but on the fifth ball, the Singaporean managed to stick to Jack. And there, Aurélie Aubert, by a wise choice, decided not to play the remaining three balls. We should. But he won his bet, the game ended with 5-4.

In fact, it was not a strategic choice at all but a mistake, pointed out a few minutes later Aurélie Aubert, inside “mixed zone” dedicated to exchanges with the media: “I thought he didn’t have more balls, I couldn’t see the show on the board, and I was afraid of myself.” The leader then faced a forest of microphones and cell phones, an extremely rare occurrence in boccia. He shows this indirectly, by hoping that “This medal allows a great media coverage of boccia and a better knowledge of this sport”. And to praise the loud support of the viewers, which he discovered “very elegant” while he was initially apprehensive about it. In the category of strengths, Samuel Pacheco, coach of the French team, presented his “A very good vision of the game, the ability to concentrate on each ball, to enter his bubble easily, and he has improved a lot in endurance.”

“No problem at all”

“I live, I eat, I play boccia”Aurélie Aubert always said. He rented a strategic game, on the order of chess and curling. Escape is still in the air. Suffering from cerebral palsy since birth, which causes muscle spasms, abnormal movements and difficulty walking or moving, his freedom is limited. Playing and getting change positions, will give him back the reins. The new Olympic champion, however, always said that he came to boccia by default, for the love of chocolate: then resident of the rehabilitation center of Richebourg, in Yvelines, Aurélie Aubert did not like the sport but the coaches promised him a lot of squares. His first victories helped him to continue.

It was also in this company that he met the woman who became his boccia assistant, Claudine Llop Cliville, then a nurse. Claudine, who took Aurélie Aubert’s seat, prepared her balls and handed them to her, said of their conclusion: “Since this morning, I’m happy, not worried at all, It’s amazing what you do, amazing. ” This Tuesday, Aurélie Aubert will return to the South Arena, for a team event. The high school student from Aubevoye (Eure) is the leader of the trio he plays with Fayçal Meguenni and Aurélien Fabre.

(1) Her teammate Sonia Heckel has been withdrawn from her team’s games in BC3.

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