Published on 01/09/2024 12:17
Video duration: 4 min
Paralympics 2024 – Archery: Damien Letulle and Tamas Gaspar greet the audience at Les Invalides hand in hand
Paralympics 2024 – Archery: Damien Letulle and Tamas Gaspar greet the audience at Les Invalides hand in hand
(Paralympics 2024 – Archery: Damien Letulle and Tamas Gaspar greet the audience at Les Invalides hand in hand)
Present at the Atlanta Olympic Games, the Frenchman succeeded in his challenge to compete in Paris.
This is a place forever rooted in his life. Even though the Frenchman Damien Letulle did not qualify for the round of 16 in the para-archery, he will remember the tribute paid by the spectators at Les Invalides on Sunday, September 1st. Present for the individual event, the 51-year-old from Cherbourg fell to the Hungarian Tomas Gaspar, losing 136 to 119. But the main thing was elsewhere.
Ranked as the number 1 French archer in 1996, he participated in the Atlanta Olympic Games. Although he returned without a medal from the United States that year, he had previously set the world record with Sébastien Flute and Lionel Torres. His fate changed the following year. In 1997, while at Insep, Damien Letulle fell five meters from a skydome. Having become tetraplegic, the then-Olympic athlete underwent his rehabilitation at Les Invalides, the very place for the archery events at the Paris Paralympic Games. Damien Letulle then decided to take up archery again and set himself the goal of participating in the Paralympic Games.
“Coming here for archery, to a place where, during my rehabilitation, I had so many questions… It’s very emotional. I wondered what I was going to do with my life. Even considering the best possible outcomes, I never imagined I would be able to return here, with this audience, to participate in the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. It’s exceptional.” He became the first archer to have participated in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.