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The Paralympic Games will begin on March 4, with a common desire for all these tricolor athletes: to surpass themselves. This is what also characterizes Philippe Croizon, an extraordinary adventurer. He has no more arms, no more legs, and yet, nothing stops him.
Have you ever parachuted? And swim across the English Channel? Connected the five continents with flippers and snorkel? Add to this a Paris-Dakar, and you have Philippe Croizon. “It’s tough though“, he admits. Hefty, especially since he has neither arms nor legs, and he even manages to laugh about it. In 1994, Philippe still has hair, two arms, two legs. He is 26 years old, he is a worker and already has a son. His wife is pregnant again, so he wants to move.
When leaving, the former steelworker wants to take his TV antenna on the roof. He takes an aluminum ladder, unbolts the antenna, puts his two shins on the rung of the aluminum ladder. 20,000 volts pass through his body. “The current came in through the hands and came out through the shins“, he says. A hundred hours of operations are linked in three months.
One evening, he watches on television, captivated, a young girl swimming across the English Channel, and decides to fulfill this sporting bet. You have to relearn everything: he trains like crazy for two years, until D-Day, in the summer of 2010. Never short of a new challenge, he even wrote to Elon Musk, the billionaire passionate about conquest space, to be part of an upcoming trip. Positive answer.