“For five years I lived with the ghost of the wheelchair in my head”: a former international XV converted to the XIII wheelchair

Le XIII fauteuil rassemble des valides et handis et se joue avec un ballon ovale. MAXPPP TEAMSHOOT – FREDERIC VENNARECCI

Le rugby à XIII fauteuil présente une singularité inclusive : il est le seul sport au monde qui se joue en fauteuil avec des valides et handis.

A sport that brings together people with disabilities and able-bodied people in the same team: for more than twenty years, wheelchair rugby has developed while ensuring that its inclusive philosophy is preserved. The discipline, born in the early 2000s in the minds of rugby league enthusiasts, is open to both able-bodied and disabled athletes of the lower limbs. The use of arms is necessary.

"It’is the only sport in the world that is played in wheelchairs at a high level with able-bodied and disabled people on the field&quot ;, assures Robert Fassolette, director of the French team, world champion in the discipline in 2013 and 2017 and again vice-champion in 2021.

With an oval balloon

First precaution: do not confuse armchair rugby with armchair rugby. The second, a Paralympic discipline also called "quad rugby", is a derivative of rugby union which is played with a volleyball and is reserved for physically handicapped people with lower and upper limbs.& nbsp;Its version at XIII is played with an oval ball, backwards passes and flattened tries. Men and women play on the same teams.

Thomas Duhalde, player for Anglet Aingirak Euskadi and the French team, joined the Basque club in 2014, when he joined the Elite 1, highest level of the discipline which brings together six clubs out of the twenty operating in the country. He took up this sport "hyper inclusive" after a meeting with his brother-in-law, a paraplegic.

David Berty, former international at XV, seduced by this "inclusive" sport

"We are harnessed like them, we have no "plus" and the disabled are very happy to measure themselves against us, able-bodied, who&rsquo ;we can play sports together", he said. Among his teammates, Julien Penella, also an international, started with his father, an amputee after an accident.

"No coincidence", for Cyril Torres, player and sports manager of the XIII armchair team of the Catalan Dragons in Perpignan, for whom "the able-bodied come to this sport for a family or heart story".

David Berty, former French XV international and five-time French champion with Stade Toulouse in the 1990s, returned to the colors of his club in 2012, in the XIII armchair team, after the diagnosis of his multiple sclerosis and a phase of depression.

Reconnaissance Quest

"For five years I lived with the ghost of the wheelchair in my head, so I really didn't want to end up there", explains- he. He ends up letting himself be convinced, to "understand how these players have fun".

I found the sensations again, this idea of ​​inclusion and living together with a mix of disabilities really appealed to me

"Even though I thought that sport was over for me, I rediscovered the sensations, this idea of ​​inclusion and of living -together with a mix of handicaps I really liked it, said the former winger. A points system ranks each player from 1 (heaviest handicap) to 5 (valid). The five present on the field must not exceed a total of 18 points, in order to ensure diversity.

"The evolution of this sport must continue so that we make it a sport in its own right", defends Cyril Torres, aware that recognition often comes through titles and performances. But above all he wants to preserve "this magnificent inclusive sport" faced with "the intensity and speed which rise more and more at high level" and which could deprive certain disabled players of the game.