“She is a great medal hope. She has everything it takes to be the future Paralympic champion.” When your coach believes in you with such conviction, you want to agree with her. At 19, taekwondo athlete Djelika Diallo almost fulfilled her coach Haby Niaré’s prophecy on Friday, August 30. At the end of a delightful run, she failed in the final against the Brazilian favorite, Ana Carolina Silva de Moura (12-5), winning a promising silver medal. “My goal was to make a podium and I did it”she said after the medal presentation.
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Eight years later, this raw talent has achieved the same feat as her mentor, who also won a silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016. To the great delight of a Parisian audience who continued to encourage Djelika Diallo in a deafening atmosphere. “The public was really there. In disabled sport, we never have such an intense public, so it’s a bit different from what we usually do. It was very beautiful to see.”she reacted.
As soon as she entered the quarter-finals, the young Parisian faced the 46-year-old reigning champion, the Danish Lisa Kjaer Gjessing. Full of control, she snatched her qualification during the golden point. Haby Niaré cried.
In the semi-finals, Djelika Diallo overthrew the Chinese Yao Yinan in the last minute to reach the final (18-12). Rolling around, shouting and waving to the crowd, the athlete-coach duo, almost ecstatic, showed their complicity, even in their demonstrations of joy. “I was shockedshe wondered. When I came back in, I raised my fist to the audience, I said to myself: “But that’s not me!” It was incredible.”
Djelika Diallo and Haby Niaré have been working together since the former valid champion was appointed to the French staff two years ago. “She’s a big sister to me, she’s my coach, she’s my life, she’s my star.she confided about her trainer. This is really my example.”
“Give it your all”
Throughout her day of competition, the experienced Haby Niaré distributed instructions and encouragement, spreading her warrior spirit. “She tells me to never give up, to never give up and to give it my all.”explained Djelika Diallo, before the Games at Monde.
Unlike her compatriot Sophie Caverzan, who was diagnosed only three years ago at the age of 26, she has been practicing taekwondo since she was 14. Born with neonatal paralysis of the brachial plexus (left arm), the very discreet teenager was spotted during a disabled sports forum, open to middle school students, at the Charléty stadium in Paris.
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