Aurélie Aubert, a life to the rhythm of boccia

An Olympic title sometimes depends on nothing. To encourage Aurélie Aubert to play boccia, Marie-Pierre Leblanc, performance manager for the French team, offered the young woman a few pieces of chocolate “in order to motivate her”. Nearly fifteen years later, the athlete won the first French medal in the Paralympic history of this discipline, similar to pétanque and curling. At 27, the player from Dreux, in Eure-et-Loire, won the final on Monday, September 2, against Singaporean Jeralyn Tan Yee Ting (5-4).

In a partially filled Arena Paris Sud, the public celebrated their victory by improvising a capella Marseillaise before chanting the first name of the new Paralympic champion at length. “I am very happy. This title represents many years of work, said Aurélie Aubert, moved, a tricolour flag on her shoulders. This sport is my passion: I eat boccia, I sleep boccia.”

This discipline, which has no equivalent among able-bodied people, is practiced by wheelchair athletes. Each player has six red or blue balls at the start of each round. The goal is to roll them as close as possible to a white ball called a “jack”, the equivalent of the jack in pétanque. Each ball of the same color located closest to the jack scores a point. The winner is the one who scores the most at the end of four rounds.

A big scare

Aurélie Aubert, who plays in BC1, a category where players have cerebral palsy and a severe disability in all four limbs, was not the favourite. Ranked sixteenth in the world, the Frenchwoman had been heavily defeated (6-1) by the Singaporean (world number two) in the group stage. She then made it to the final thanks to very close victories in the quarter-finals and semi-finals.

Aurélie Aubert started her game well, leading 5-0 after the first two sets. Then, she lost focus. While the gold medal seemed assured, the athlete had a big scare. “I made a mistake, recognized the Frenchwoman. I thought my opponent had no more balls when he had one left. When I saw the referee’s face, I said to myself, there is a problem.” “This lack of lucidity, probably due to the stress surrounding this final, could have cost him dearly”believes Samuel Pacheco, coach of the French team.

Introduced to the Paralympic Games in 1984, held jointly in New York and Stoke Mandeville, England, boccia has 3,600 players in France, including 700 in competition. Aurélie Aubert, who suffers from cerebral palsy due to a lack of oxygen at birth, started at the age of 13, after meeting Claudine Llop, a nurse at her center. The latter is now her playing assistant. She accompanies her during the Paralympic tournament. “My role is to be facing the field, she explains. I am not allowed to speak or influence Aurélie, but I can steer her chair according to her instructions. During the throw, I also act as a counterweight on the chair, because she gains momentum… On a daily basis, Aurélie gives me as much as I can give her.

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