He intends to live up to his reputation as the “white cheetah”. This Saturday, August 31, sprinter Timothée Adolphe will take to the track at the Stade de France for the first round of the men’s 400 meters at the 2024 Paralympic Games. The athlete will compete in the T11 category, reserved for athletes with total blindness. In accordance with IOC rules, he will not run alone: to avoid leaving his lane or injuring himself, the Frenchman is required to move with a guide, to whom he is connected by a link attached to his hand or arm. “We run in a completely synchronized way, in mirror image: if I raise my left arm, he raises his right arm. For it to work, you have to know each other by heart,” the runner told L’Express, a few days before his first competition. Since 2017, the para-athlete has decided to entrust this very special role to sprinter Jeffrey Lami, which requires exceptional physical performance – namely the ability to cover 400 metres in 50.03 seconds, as was the case during the European record set by the pair on 15 June at the Charléty stadium in Paris.
For Jeffrey Lami, this adventure is a “stroke of fate”. “We developed a pretty incredible fraternal and sporting bond, even though before Timothée, I didn’t know much about disabled sports”, admits the sprinter, who was never destined to become a guide for Paralympic athletes. Before 2017, Jeffrey Lami only competed in the able-bodied category, and was one of the best hopes of his generation, with a French cadet champion title in 2011 and several French Espoir vice-champion titles. Then the young man was injured several times that same year, experienced a “slight drop in morale”, and doubted. It was during this vague period of his career that he met his future partner: “Coming out of the 2016 Rio Games, Timothée was looking for a younger guide, with an excellent level and who was not necessarily a retired athlete. That’s when he came looking for me”.
To reach an exceptional Paralympic level, the duo trains tirelessly, communicates on each movement, analyzes each race. “The guide must not only run fast. It is also a human encounter, an understanding of the other so fine that we no longer even need to speak to know if he is tired, if he is in pain, if he is going to perform this or that movement”, describes Timothée Adolphe.
For Jeffrey Lami, the commitment is total: in parallel with his work in parasport, he continues to train for his individual career. In 2021, he succeeded in the double challenge of qualifying with his partner for the Tokyo Paralympic Games in the 400 meters, and of prequalifying with the French team for the 400 meter relay at the Olympic Games. But at the French championships, during which the sprinter must confirm his level among the able-bodied, he injured himself once again. “I wanted to lead my career on both fronts, I understood that I had to choose a side. I chose Timothée, because there is something much stronger than simple sporting competition. Together, I knew that we could go very far,” he says.
“It’s the culmination of a career”
On August 28, 2021, in Tokyo, it was at the Paralympic Games that the sprinter distinguished himself alongside Timothée Adolphe, in the 400-meter event. The pair largely dominated their series, but the link that connected them fell to the ground in the last few meters, leading to a disqualification. “It was a real blow, but we intend to take our revenge this year. We know it will be beautiful,” predicts Timothée Adolphe, who is aiming for nothing less than a Paralympic medal.
In the world of parasport, this special bond between the two sprinters is far from unique. In several disciplines, such as paracycling, paratriathlon, paraathletics and paramarathon, many visually impaired or disabled athletes are accompanied by guides or pilots, who allow them to practice their sport without putting themselves in danger or leaving the track. In para-athletics alone, seven guides will accompany four visually impaired athletes during the Paris Games. Many of them are former top-level athletes, or even former or current Olympic champions.
Sprinter Harold Achi-Yao, who has just participated in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as a substitute for the French team in the 4 x 100 meters, has also committed to visually impaired sprinter Delya Boulaghlem, whom he will guide in her sprint and long jump events for the Paralympic Games. Charles Renard, French junior champion in the 200 meters and guide to Timothée Adolphe in the 100 meters, is also continuing an individual career in parallel with the aim of participating in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. “These courses of excellence demonstrate that the sporting level of guides is increasingly demanding, it is a real commitment. Often, they must choose between their individual career with the able-bodied and their career in parasport”, explains Gautier Simounet, referent of the guides of the French para-athletics team.
The man knows something about it: with the sprinter Assia El Hannouni, this former guide won two gold medals in the 200 meters at the Paralympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012. “When I chose disabled sport, I had a very good national level, I was doing French championships. I could perhaps have tried to qualify for the French Olympic team, without any guarantee. But with disabled sport, I went much further than I could have ever hoped,” he confides. In London, in 2012, the young man remembers his lap of the track in front of 80,000 people, the Marseillaise sung alongside Assia El Hannouni on the podium and congratulations from the then president François Hollande. “It was the culmination of a career, and I have never regretted my choice,” concludes the sprinter. Especially since his debut, Gautier Simounet has been able to observe, delighted, the “considerable” evolution of the recognition of guides at the Paralympic Games.
Random selection
“When I won gold in 2008 in Beijing, I had to call my parents to tell them, because the Paralympic Games were so outsourced in terms of media coverage. No one knew the names of the athletes, and even less those of their guides… All that is changing,” he explains. For a long time, the difference in treatment between para-athletes and their partners made Assia El Hannouni, an eight-time gold medalist at the Paralympic Games since 2004, jump. “In Athens, twenty years ago, the guide didn’t even get on the podium with us. He wasn’t registered at the start of the races, his name wasn’t mentioned, he didn’t win any medals or bonuses,” laments the sprinter. In fact, the selection of guides was, at the time, sometimes haphazard. “There are some who didn’t really take themselves seriously, trained little, didn’t really find their place, or on the contrary, wanted to take all the spotlight,” she says. As the performance level of para-athletes explodes, the demands of the French Parasports Federation (FFH) on the selection of guides become increasingly strict.
Invited to the podiums and medallists in the same way as their partner since 2008, the guides and pilots of the French para-athletes now benefit from the same medals, the same bonuses and the same training as their partners. “They also have the same sporting, psychological and professional support, with the same financial aid”, assures Pierrick Gireaudeau, national technical director at the FFH. “Our performances in parasport are also recognized in our individual record, and we have the right to sponsorship, partnerships, secondments in our professional career. It’s a small revolution”, adds Jeffrey Lami, who still remembers the time when he could only benefit with difficulty, as a guide, from the physiotherapy sessions reserved for para-athletes following a competition.
“It hasn’t always been easy!”
François Pervis, a track cyclist who won a bronze medal in team sprint at the Rio Games, also welcomes a real “professionalization” of Paralympic sport, which includes this recognition of guides and pilots. In 2021, while he was thinking about retiring from the able-bodied, the Frenchman agreed to become the pilot of para-cyclist Raphaël Beaugillet for the Tokyo Games. “Before accepting, I made a specification to the Federation, explaining the equipment we needed, the staff requirements, for training, the financing… They accepted everything, which is very symbolic,” the cyclist emphasizes. This commitment paid off: together, the two riders won the bronze medal in the category B kilometer event in Tokyo. “It was a real victory, an incredible moment. However, training had not always been easy!” remembers François Pervis, who had to get used to a “very long bike, which vibrates everywhere”, to the rhythm of the tandem on which “you have to get up and sit down in a totally synchronized way” to avoid falls, or even to the management of training between the two riders.
“It’s not always easy to find the right rider: if I had to count the number of pairs I’ve had throughout my career, it would take time!”, comments Raphaël Beaugillet. In 2018, during his first selection for the track world championships, for example, the Federation offered the cyclist a French rider living in England… When he trains in France. “Over time, I found riders who suited me, with whom we broke personal records and won medals,” recalls the cyclist. Like François Pervis or Quentin Caleyron, with whom he won the bronze medal in the Men’s B speed event at the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships. Although he did not qualify for the Paris Games, Raphaël Beaugillet is delighted with the interest of the French in parasport, and the media coverage of the 2024 Paralympic Games. “Of course, I had not planned on losing my sight, and that my life would be like this. But I also never thought I would become a Paralympic athlete and win medals. It is absolutely incredible to have this possibility. And it must continue,” he sighs.
.