Three years after his tragic encounter with a shark, Laurent Chardard was already starting to collect medals.
In every para-athlete story, except those born with a congenital disability, there is almost always the cursed moment, the day their life was turned upside down, taking them from the world of the able-bodied to that of the disabled.
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Laurent Chardard’s turnaround is particularly edifying. On August 27, 2016, while he was bodyboarding in Boucan Canot, northwest of Reunion Island, the student was attacked by a shark. “I didn’t see it attack me, I just saw a gray-brown mass, typical of a bull shark, coming from below. I’m lucky to remember my entire accident and I know I made the right choices,” he says. “At the time of the attack, the shark grabbed my right arm and pulled me to the bottom. I retaliated by hitting it with my left hand, which cost me my thumb. They say you have to hit the gills, but I don’t know where I hit it.”
Laurent Chardard will line up in three races
At 20, deprived of two of his limbs, it takes a great deal of self-denial and effort to accept and move forward. Laurent Chardard is not the type to complain. He throws himself headlong into swimming in the S6 category, intended for swimmers with moderately limited coordination on one side of the body, very limited coordination in the lower torso and legs, or without limbs.
Just three years after his accident, in 2019, he won a medal at the world championships in his favourite distance, the 50m butterfly. But at the Tokyo Olympics, intimidated by his first Games, he narrowly missed the podium.
Since then, the new Bordeaux native (he lives and trains in Pessac) has added to his list of achievements: world champion in the 50m butterfly in 2022 and 2023, he is aiming for gold in the Paris La Défense Arena pool.
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Laurent Chardard will line up in three races. The first, on September 2, will be the mixed 4×100 meters freestyle. A distance in which the French team is vice-world champion. Swimming for a team, Laurent loves it, and he has a feeling that in Paris the pool where King Léon Marchand was born will bring good luck to the Blues.
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