Double Olympic champion in Paris this summer, Teddy Riner spoke about the Paralympic Games and parasports on RTL ten days ago. Comments that angered Sofyane Mehiaoui, one of the members of the French wheelchair basketball team.
Words that did not pass. On social networks, Sofyane Mehiaoui, a member of the French wheelchair basketball team, regretted the words of Teddy Riner, double Olympic champion at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, about para-athletes. The French judoka mentioned the terms “superheroes” or even “Avengers” on RTL a few days ago.
“You need to stop talking about us like that, you're not helping us!!!” replied Sofyane Mehiaoui on her social networks. “We are to be neither pitied nor cherished in this way!” he added, hoping that “disabled people” would be “considered normal people”.
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“I know he's not bad and he wants to help us, but he's doing it wrong. I want to react so people understand that. But when Teddy says that, it also means we're not doing sports at all,” he then defused. Mehiaoui, who hopes that the public will respond: “Come see us because we're going to perform, we're going to make sporting gestures, that's why we have to come and see each other.”