Paralympic delegation left: “We will go to 10 medals” | Games for people with special needs

31 Belgian Paralympic athletes (and Aniline Monsieur, who serves as a tandem guide) will soon represent Belgium at the Paralympics and a large number of them have already left for Tokyo today.

“It’s been 5 long years since Rio,” said Guillaume Joubert of the Belgian Paralympic Committee. “I can’t believe we’re leaving now.”

Rio was a huge success for the Belgian national team with 11 medals. “A good performance would be great. We’re aiming for 10 medals, and that looks like a possible result.”

There are many candidates for Belgian medals. “In table tennis we have two Paralympic champions: Laurens Devos and Florian Van Acker. Joachim Gérard is a well-known name in wheelchair tennis (he recently won Wimbledon) and in cycling we have a lot of candidates, both on the road like as well as on the slopes, there are also Horse riding, and of course athletics, with Peter Jenin.

As with the Olympics, the Paralympic framework was kept to a minimum. Family and friends are not welcome anyway.

Joubert asserts: “All that is necessary is there.” “But the family is not there and that is very unfortunate. With a positive result, but perhaps more with a negative result. It was the same with the Olympians and he did well there.”

The journey of a group of people with disabilities to Japan, who also take a lot of materials with them, is not easy. “You have cyclists with their air-conditioned bikes, like a tandem bike or a hand bike, you have the athletes with their wheels, … In addition, you also have a lot of medical and paramedical items. Kudos to my colleagues who arranged all these.”