The Cameroonian, who has been living in Great Britain since 2022, flag bearer of this delegation created in Rio, came third in the 400m final this Sunday.
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Already on Saturday, during the semi-final heats of the 400m (T11), the large crowd at the Stade de France had given a warm welcome to Guillaume Junior Atangana, a Cameroonian competing for the refugee Paralympic team. On Sunday evening, although less noisy than those reserved for the Frenchman Timothée Adolphe, the encouragement addressed to the 25-year-old athlete, who has been living in Bradford in Great Britain since 2022, was once again very lively when his name was announced by the announcer at the Saint-Denis stadium. With his guide Donard Ndim Nyamjua, his partner on the track and companion in exile (they were already training together in the country), Atangana came third in his race, winning the bronze medal.
With the second best time in the semi-finals the day before, the one who dreamed of bringing a medal to the Paralympic refugee team appeared as the main rival of the Frenchman Timothée Adolphe, who finally came second, behind the Venezuelan, Santos Gonzalez. “I worked a long time for this and I know what I have in my legs” he said before entering the competition.
When he was younger, the athlete born in 1999 in Cameroon dreamed of becoming a footballer. “But life didn’t allow me to do that,” he told AFP modestly last week during one of the final training sessions at the CREPS in Reims before his entry into competition in Paris. At the age of 6, an allergic reaction to an anti-malarial drug caused him to gradually lose his sight. A handicap that he initially struggled to accept, before undergoing several operations. For several years, high-level sport seemed inaccessible to him: “I couldn’t believe that blind people could run and perform well.” For his first Paralympiad in Tokyo, then still under Cameroonian colours, the sprinter crossed the line in 4th position in the 400m. “This setback motivated us to train harder and improve our coordination,” explained his guide in an interview with the International Paralympic Committee a few weeks ago.
A profitable investment for Atangana, who will be back at the start of the 100m in a few days with Israel Malachi-Harrison, his other guide. But his performance on Sunday is already making history: after the bronze already won by Afghan para-taekwondo player Zakia Khudadadi on Thursday, Guillaume Junior Atangana has won the second medal for the refugee Paralympic team since its arrival at the Games in Rio in 2016.
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