“I didn’t like boccia, they lured me with chocolate,” says gold medalist Aurélie Aubert

At 26, the native of Eure-et-Loir became the first French woman in history to stand on a podium in this Paralympic discipline.

If Aurélie Aubert loves chocolate, she didn’t stop there for her first participation in the Paralympic Games in boccia (category BC1, players with cerebral palsy and similar). At 26, the Frenchwoman preferred a medal of real metal, and even the most beautiful – in gold –, by winning the final against the Singaporean Yee Ting Jeralyn Tan, Monday September 2. An unexpected victory for someone whose goal was simply to reach the quarter-finals, seven years after discovering this exclusively Paralympic discipline.

“I didn’t like boccia, I was lured with little chocolate balls, without mentioning the brandsmiled Aurélie Aubert before the Games. Marie-Pierre Leblanc [sélectionneuse des Bleues] told me that if I came to play boccia, I would have chocolate. So I went down to play. A few weeks later, I went to the French championship, I finished 4th and I was hooked…”

At the time, housed at the Mallet Foundation in Richebourg, in the Yvelines, Aurélie Aubert took up the game of this type of indoor pétanque. “What I like about boccia is the strategic dimension: the body and the mind must be united”explains the woman who has suffered from cerebral palsy since birth. To the point that she now trains ten hours a week, while being surrounded by a mental trainer, a psychologist, a hypnotist and a sophrologist.

But the most important person in her entourage is Claudine Llop Cliville. Initially Aurélie Aubert’s sophrologist, she changed hats in 2017. “Marie-Pierre Leblanc told me that Aurélie needed an assistant, she asked me to try. I have always been very interested in disabled sport, I discovered boccia and when I dive, it’s like Obelix: I’m hooked for life“explains the woman who has been caring for the new Paralympic medallist since she was very young.

“Claudine and I have an inexplicable relationship. We’ve been very close for years, naturally.”

Aurélie Aubert, boccia player

to franceinfo: sport

“Our long relationship is a strength. I know Aurélie from A to Z, so much so that people often ask me if she’s my daughter. And I like that!” smiles Claudine, whose role on the field is to position her player’s chair and bring her the balls. “I am facing the game, but I cannot speak. I follow Aurélie’s requests to place her chair and give her the balls, but I have no action on her game and her decisions”says the assistant of the new Paralympic boccia champion.

“It’s gratifying to be in his shadow”assures Claudine Llop Cliville, even though she is not considered a medallist, unlike other guides, including in boccia. Which does not take anything away from the performance of Aurélie Aubert, the first French medallist in boccia history, where we expected more from Sonia Heckel, eliminated in the group stage. And which reminds us that a great story can start from a box of chocolates.