On social media last week, wheelchair basketball player Sofyane Mehiaoui regretted the words used by Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner with regard to Paralympic athletes. Athletes, “neither to be pitied nor overvalued”, according to him. We met him before the French team’s entry into the competition this Friday against Canada on the Arena Bercy court.
We saw you react to the comments of Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner, who described you as a “superhero”…
SOFYANE MEHIAOUI. They meant well and I thank them because they are the only Olympic athletes who really talk about the Paralympic Games. But many of my friends shared their words and I wanted to make it clear that calling us “real champions” bothers me. Does that mean that during the Olympics, they are not real? It’s the same thing when they say that people with disabilities have a hard time living with it: that’s not necessarily the case.
What message do you want to convey?
We want to show that before being people with disabilities, we are high-level athletes. I use my wheelchair on the field like a driver uses his Formula 1 car, for example. It’s just a tool. In everyday life, it’s the same. I use my wheelchair to get around. I’m not here every day saying to myself: my disability is difficult, I have trouble accepting it.. No, I accepted it twenty years ago. The chair is part of my personality and I wouldn’t want to change it. If tomorrow, they give me my legs back, it won’t be me.
Why is this message struggling to be heard?
I was disappointed because we did a great job with Paris 2024: we went to schools to meet children, who are great because they don’t worry about the wheelchair. It’s easy to change the mentalities of young people, it’s the adults that we have to try to change. The real problem is not the disability, it’s our environment. What makes disability difficult is not the wheelchair, it’s accessibility.