how do able-bodied and disabled athletes train together?

Bérénice Cleyet-Merle and Renaud Clerc are athletes. They are both 1,500 meter specialists. Bérénice Cleyet-Merle competes in the Olympic Games. Renaud Clerc, suffering from hemiplegia, competes in the Paralympic Games. Two competitions, two different categories, but they train together. “We work together because we have roughly the same level”explains Renaud Clerc. “My disability category resembles, at the highest world level, its women’s category”he explains. “In our entire group, we are the only ones to have the same training plan because in the end, we have the same time objectives”agrees Bérénice Cleyet-Merle.

For para-athletes, being around able-bodied athletes is a way of surpassing themselves and forgetting their disability. This is the case of Ugo Didier, an athlete suffering from a foot deformity. “I needed to find motivation, emulation in training”describes swimmer Ugo Didier. “I needed to be around people who swim, some of them, faster than me”he adds.

Ministry of Sports, Youth, Popular Education and Community Life

The French disabled sports federation (FFH)

Non-exhaustive list.