Destiny, known for being cruel, can also be tricky. The final of the Paralympic Games archery tournament in the W1 category, reserved for archers with the most severe disabilities, takes place on Sunday 1is September, on the esplanade of the Invalides (7e The event takes place opposite the military hospital where Damien Letulle, 51, who competed in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta as an able-bodied athlete, underwent rehabilitation after an accident that nearly cost him his life. He suffers from partial quadriplegia and retains some mobility in his upper limbs.
It was in 1997. The Norman – he was born in Bayeux and grew up near Cherbourg (Manche) – was then 24 years old. « For a long time, I was reluctant to take up archery again. I couldn’t imagine high-level sport in a body that doesn’t function at 100%. I didn’t see the notion of competition in disabled sport, confides the person concerned. And then, in 2017, when I learned that the Games would be in Paris, I told myself that it was worth investing fully in order to participate.”
“That sums up the character, comments his friend Sébastien Flute, Olympic champion in Barcelona in 1992 and sports director of archery within the Organizing Committee of the Paris 2024 Games. He is a whole and generous person. Once he has decided something, he puts all his energy into it.”
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“I have known him for thirty years. He has a strong personality and a very strong mind. After his accident, he hung on, he never gave up,” confirmed Ludovic Cotry, former coach of the French Paralympic archery team and technical advisor to the French federation.
A path strewn with pitfalls
It was on the evening of November 7, 1997, in the cafeteria of the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (Insep), in the Bois de Vincennes, in Paris, that Damien Letulle’s life changed. “We were celebrating my birthday, remembers Mr. Cotry. Damien climbed onto the cafeteria’s rooftop terrace and sat on a porthole, which gave way. He fell five meters on his head, which exploded his skull and shattered his spine. At the hospital, a surgeon said that if he survived, he would remain a quadriplegic and that only his eyelids would be able to move.
When he left the hospital in 1998, Damien Letulle spent a year at the National Institution of Invalids, a rehabilitation center usually reserved for French soldiers wounded in operations. The path to reconstruction was strewn with pitfalls. In times of suffering, his sense of humor proved to be a lifesaver. “We soon started teasing each other again, like, ‘No arms, no chocolate.’ It was his way of surviving,” Ludovic Cotry says. His strength of character is impressive. “We found the angry and motivated Damien quite quickly,” remembers Sébastien Flute.
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