Four players from Volley-Ball Club Le Haillan are part of the French men’s and women’s sitting volleyball teams competing in the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games: two men (Cyrille Chahboune and Morgan Troussard) and two women (Karen Faimali-Meger and Anaïs Rigal). How can we explain this strong representation of the Bordeaux club?
“It was a combination of circumstances. Two players expected to join the French team (Guillaume Ducrocq and Cyrille Chahboune) were looking for a club. They came to Bordeaux and met Yannick Arsicaud, our sports director, who had skills in sitting volleyball. He agreed to take them under his wing and train them. The section was born in 2019 and has grown little by little,” summarizes Alain Trévisiol, president of the club. Anaïs Rigal, Karen Faimali-Meger and Morgan Troussard joined the group a little later. Last year, the section had 18 members. “Sitting volleyball is an inclusive sport where able-bodied and disabled people, women and men, can mix on the court,” emphasizes the president.
By the strength of arms
The sitting volleyball court is 6 meters wide and 5 meters deep in each camp.
Volleyball Club Le Haillan
“Sitting volleyball is an inclusive sport where able-bodied and disabled people, women and men, can mix on the court”
The Haillan section has a core of athletes with disabilities and ex-volleyball players aged 40-45 who often have a bad knee. In short, they can no longer jump and find in this seated version a way to continue their sport. Knowing that sitting volleyball pits two teams of six players against each other who move by sliding on the ground using the strength of their arms. Nothing like it to strengthen the shoulders and firm up the abdominal muscles. The court is smaller than in classic volleyball and the net is placed lower: 1.15 m for men, 1.05 m for women. Le Haillan is currently the only club in Gironde to have a sitting volleyball section. It is by far the leading entity in the discipline in Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
Created in 1985 by a former sports teacher at the Émile-Zola secondary school, the Volley-Ball Club Le Haillan is a family structure with around 160 members, a mainly women’s club. “We have climbed another step since we have just moved up to National 2. Our DNA is training women,” emphasizes Alain Trévisiol. As for the Paris Paralympic Games, “it will be a showcase for our club, the city of Le Haillan. Sitting volleyball deserves to be highlighted and developed,” emphasizes the manager. A Paralympic sport since 1980 for men and 2004 for women, the discipline is still in its infancy in France.
Related News :