Arnaud Assoumani was a gold medalist in the long jump at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games (T46 category), with a world record to boot, at a time when these events were not televised live in France. A little less than a year before his sixth Paralympic Games, after a long period of injury, he is approaching the deadline with the hats of athlete, captain of the French team and now ambassador. During the Paralympic day organized in Paris, Sunday October 8, he spoke to RFI.
3 mins
RFI: You will experience your sixth Paralympic Games during Paris 2024. Are you now as much an ambassador as an athlete?
Arnaud Assoumani: I am an athlete, I train every year for the different international championships. Representing the French team here is just incredible pride. At the same time, I have always been involved, and more and more as my career progressed. So yes, I am also an ambassador on a whole bunch of subjects and in particular on questions of law, equality, diversity, inclusion.
Where is your presence at this type of event?
Events like Paralympic Day are a fundamental issue for changing views and mentalities with regard to disability and difference in general. It’s something that drives me almost more than delivering performances and results. I know that my performances help to change things.
You achieved a world record in 2008 which went under the radar in France, what is your view on the media coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games?
It has evolved enormously at the media level. Having the Paralympic Games in France helps enormously. In comparison, when I set the world record (in long jump, 7.23m) and won my Paralympic title in 2008, there was no live broadcast of Paralympic summer sports on television. The first time with live was in 2016, it’s super recent. There, we will have 300 hours of coverage on France Télévisions, so we are moving into another universe. Even if the needs remain enormous in terms of visibility, so that people can know us and be inspired by different types of champions, that we can have different types of disabilities and play sport.
More personally, what are your personal objectives for the competition?
Now that I am qualified, the goal is to win gold at home. Which is a real challenge since I didn’t medal in Tokyo, I was coming back from a big injury. I am not favorite. But I no longer have any health problems, I was able to really rebuild myself after Tokyo and I feel very good. I continue to progress despite my experience and my age (smile).
Any idea of the length to get?
At the Games, we don’t care about the length, the important thing is to win. We will have to jump far anyway, with each Games it progresses.