He dreamed of it. Then the selection fell. At 44 years old (he was born on September 1, 1979 in Besançon) Julien Michaud, licensed at the Laurentin Table Tennis Club in the Pyrénées-Orientales, won his ticket for the Paralympic Games in Paris. The first Olympiad of his career. “I have to be frank, I’m on edge, moved, a tear quickly comes to my eye when people talk to me about the Games,” he explains to France bleu Roussillon. “But we have to get back on track quickly because we have only gone part of the way. We train like crazy to achieve the goal.”
Quadriplegic at 17 after an accident
Julien Michaud says “we”, because he is a doubles specialist. His partner is Fabien Lamirault. The duo became European para table tennis champions last year. For these Paralympic Games in Paris, the two table tennis players are aiming for gold. It would be a magnificent reward, because Julien Michaud fought to get there. He played football when he was younger but an accident left him quadriplegic when he was 17. “I used sport to get back on my feet. It maintains my body, which is bruised so I have to make it work even more.”
He took up table tennis because it was the sport, he says, “that was most accessible to wheelchairs”. Here he is today at the top of his discipline, with his partner, named Laure, at his side. He sees it as a sign as to the color of the metal he hopes to bring back in September, from the Paralympic Games in Paris.
