Mandy François-Elie, resilience at the end of the track and the jumps

Having won a medal in each of her first three Paralympic Games appearances, Mandy François-Elie is, at 34, one of the headliners of French para athletics. In Paris, the sprinter has pinned her podium hopes – slimmer than before – on the long jump. Another Frenchwoman, Manon Genest, 31, world bronze medallist in 2023, will be present alongside her in the final on Sunday 1^is September, at the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis).

The two thirty-year-olds are competing in the T37 category (coordination disorders). For the first event of her Paralympic trilogy on Friday, Mandy François-Elie came fifth in the 200m in 28.20 seconds. “I pushed, I did everything I had to do”she explained. It was the Chinese Wen Xiaoyan, world record holder, who won in 25.86 seconds, well ahead of the competition.

In 2012, four years after a stroke that struck her at the age of 18, the Martinican woman won the 100m to everyone’s surprise. “I couldn’t believe it, it was magical.”she confided to the Monde a few days before Paris 2024.

The athlete continued her momentum in 2016, at the Rio 2016 Games, winning a silver medal in the same distance, before winning bronze in 2021 in Tokyo, this time in the 200m. In 2013, she had already achieved the 100m-200m double at the World Championships in Lyon.

Before the stroke that left her partially paralyzed on the right side of her body, Mandy François-Elie was one of the French hopefuls in the 400m. “I’ve been running since I was little.”she says. Her passion for athletics accompanied her during her slow reconstruction. “Writing, speaking, walking, it was difficult. But you have to hang on. Sport helped me a lot.”she adds.

A college named after him in Lamentin

For years, speaking has been a challenge for the champion, who struggles on the track and in everyday life to constantly combat her aphasia: “It’s only been a few years that I’ve been able to express myself better. At the beginning of my career, it was difficult.”

Subject to more and more stress behind the starting blocks, the sprinter has chosen, for two years, to move towards the jumps. She has been taking it up recently “more fun”. Qualified in the 100m, 200m and the long jump, it was in this last event that she believed, before the Games, that she had the best chance of a podium finish.

At the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance, Mandy François-Elie trains with former sprinter Dimitri Demonière and long jump specialist Robert Emmiyan. A model of resilience and sporting success, a college in her hometown of Lamentin already bears her name. Whether or not she manages to win a fourth Paralympic medal this weekend, the Martinican has nothing left to prove and she will have one last chance in the 100m, where she will line up on Wednesday. After that, it will be time to think about the future.