Marie Mahé, Media365: published on Wednesday August 28, 2024 at 6:20 p.m.
Alex Portal (22 years old), triple world champion last year, will be one of the French people to watch, in swimming, at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
He will most certainly be one of the French to watch at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games. Alex Portal, now only 22 years old, was crowned triple world champion last year. In the French capital, he will therefore necessarily be highly anticipated in the pool, as was a certain Léon Marchand a few weeks ago. This comparison had made Alex Portal react, before the 2024 Paris Olympic Games (July 26 – August 11), when he confided in AFP, last May, during an interview organized by Arena, his own sponsor: “The media was a bit amused to make the comparison, it’s really flattering because for me, he remains one of the best swimmers in the world at the moment”.
Portal in the running from Thursday
Last year, in August, in Manchester, Alex Portal triumphed at the World Para-Swimming Championships, winning no fewer than three S13 World Champion titles, in the 100 and 400 metres freestyle, as well as the 200 metres individual medley. These titles came just a few days after Marchand’s in Fukuoka. Since then, Léon Marchand has also won four Olympic titles in Paris. For Portal, these three gold medals won in England, as well as the silver in the 100 metres butterfly, were a turning point: “During the competition, I worked hard on winning, and on racing one after the other by getting back on track straight away (…) I was pretty happy to be able to handle that emotionally.” In Paris, the Frenchman will enter the fray this Thursday morning, with the 100 metres butterfly, at La Défense Arena. Visually impaired from birth, Alex Portal suffers from ocular albinism, a genetic disease, like his own little brother Kylian (17 years old), also a swimmer and involved in these Games.
