Gold and silver medalist, Tanguy de La Forest leads the French shooting team

« Tanguy ! Tanguy ! Tanguy ! » The song of the fans of the French rifleman Tanguy de La Forest is set to become the hit of the summer in Châteauroux, in Indre, where the Paralympic Games shooting competitions are taking place until September 5 at the National Shooting Sports Center (CNTS).

On Sunday, September 1, the Frenchman won gold in the ten-meter prone rifle shooting competition (i.e. leaning on the elbows), two days after winning silver in the standing event (same weapon, same distance).

Often placed, the Breton, who had never been on the podium in five participations in the Paralympic Games, therefore doubly warded off fate during his sixth attempt. It had been twelve years, since Cédric Fèvre-Chevalier’s title in London in 2012, that a Frenchman had not stood on the highest step of the podium in para sport shooting.

Thanks to a cool final, in which he repeatedly obtained the maximum score (10.9 points, corresponding to a shot right in the centre of the target), he finally beat the tenacious Brazilian Alexandre Augusto Galgani and the Japanese Mika Mizuta, the surprise guest of the final. “While I sometimes get weak at the end, nothing could touch me today, I was transcended,” said Tanguy de La Forest, on cloud nine, in the mixed zone after the medal ceremony.

Double business leader

The Breton has come a long way since he almost fell through in the morning, finishing only in seventh place in qualifying (only the first eight qualify for the final). “It was decided by a single lead, he said. I had a little stroke of luck that I often lacked in the past.

Aged 46, Tanguy de La Forest suffers from infantile spinal muscular atrophy, a progressive genetic disease similar to myopathy. His muscles are so weak that he can neither walk nor lift a bottle of water. He moves around in an electric wheelchair, which he controls with a joystick. To shoot, he uses a support with a spring that allows him to carry his rifle.

His disability does not prevent him from running two companies: the family business created by his father, which sells promotional items to companies, and a recruitment agency specializing in workers with disabilities. Since 2017, he has also been Secretary General of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee (CPSF).

His vocation as a sport shooter dates back to a rifle shooting competition he won at the age of eight at a fair in Brittany. In the French team, the entrepreneur is a discreet leader, leading more by example than by words. “He brings his calm and his charisma. He is a driving force for the group.”says Gilles Muller, the national technical director (DTN) of the French Shooting Federation (FFTir).

“Rub shoulders with the best”

With these two medals, the federation has already achieved the objective announced before the Games. A success that owes nothing to chance. Since 2017, the Paralympic delegation has been managed by the FFTir, and no longer by the disabled sports federation, which devotes a budget of two million euros to it.

“We have increased the workforce, improved detection, medical monitoring, the technological approach… We invest as much in a para-shooter as in an able-bodied shooter,” Mr. Muller explains. Inaugurated in 2018, accessible to people with reduced mobility, able to accommodate 600 spectators, the CNTS has proven to be a valuable tool for the federation.

One of the keys has been the increase in the number of training sessions, courses and international competitions in which French shooters are invited to participate. “With the coaches, we realized that if we wanted medals, we had to regularly compete against the best, and in particular the South Koreans.”continues the DTN.

It was during the Para Shooting World Cup organized in Châteauroux in 2022, then at the one in Lima, in 2023, that the results began to take off. The French selection is made up of nine members with very different profiles. Like Tanguy de La Forest, the leaders do not hesitate to share their experience with the younger ones. An important aspect in a sport that matures late. Five French people present in Châteauroux are competing in their first Games.

Tanguy de La Forest will be back on the Châteauroux shooting range on Wednesday September 4 for the 50m prone rifle shooting event.