Twelve hours in the life of a French Paralympic athlete in quarantine

When he heard that France was going under complete lockdown because of COVID-19, French Handbiker Mathieu Bosredon was relieved. Yes, relieved. After training outside for ten days without knowing if it was the right thing to do or not, he was reassured to adopt a new sport routine, at home. But his relief did not last long. “When the news came out that Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games were postponed to 2021, I was quite dismayed,” Bosredon admits.

After being frustrated to get so close to a podium at Rio Paralympic games in 2016, Mathieu Bosredon thought that 2020 could be his year but, instead of complaining and losing his motivation, he got back on track as soon as he agreed with his coach on a “quarantine routine”, as he calls it.

March 18- Bosredon’s outdoor training session a few days before France went into lockdown (Instagram pictures)

When I talked to Mathieu Bosredon for the first time, he answered my FaceTime call from his garage, a white bath towel around his neck. He explained to me that he was training for the Para-cycling World Championships in Belgium in June, the first step to be qualified for the Paralympic Games. The event was not postponed or cancelled at the moment. It was three pm in France, Mathieu had just finished his daily training. He told me that he rushed from his Handbike to his wheelchair to talk to me. From what I see, the garage where he has all his training equipment- his Handbike, fitness machines and arm weights- is dark and not very cozy. “That is my own bubble, I am the only one who is allowed to stay here.” Bosredon meditates, talks to his coach, sweats, cries and screams in his garage.

He tells me that the health crisis is hard to deal with for athletes who are used to work out and practice their sport outside, “it is even more difficult for a paraplegic athlete, he concedes. I have found a routine, over the years, that suits me and that does not require much help from my family. As of now, the quarantine has disrupted all my points of reference.”

It is a good thing that Mathieu learned to be resilient at a young age, it helped him to overcome unforeseen events and hardships. As he goes through the list of exercises that his coach sent him a few minutes ago, the Handbiker who is disabled since he was four years-old, tells me that he first discovered Handbike when he was twelve years-old, it was a way for him to follow his father and his brother who were often riding their bikes during the weekend. While drinking his green smoothie, Bosredon explains that handbiking gave him a sense of freedom and independence that he welcomed as “a gift of god” when he was a teenager. With the current lockdown, he has lost his cherished freedom of movement. “What I miss the most is my handbike’s speed, it is not the same from home, I miss the thrill of speed”.

Mathieu Bosredon’s garage, where he trains during the lockdown. Under the red sheet is his Handbike (Instagram picture).

Mathieu’s biggest enemy during the pandemic is boredom, it is something his coach and him are very cautious about. He laughs when he reads his program for the next day. The home trainer session is apparently going to be really hard, “I don’t want to start from scratch when the quarantine will come to an end, it takes years and hours of training to be where I am now, but it also takes a few days or weeks to regress.” When he pronounces the word “regress”, I can see that Mathieu is frustrated. For an athlete in his thirties, it is challenging to be as strong and as competitive as younger performers. “If the younger competitors could roll over me to beat me, they would,” he confesses. The big mistake for Mathieu would be to let himself be too distracted by his family life. In times when people tend to check-in more often with their loved-ones, Mathieu has to stay self-centered and focused to make sure he remains mentally strong.

“The biggest and most demanding challenge for me at this point in my life is to be qualified for Paris Paralympic Games in 2024, it’d be a dream come true to win a medal at these Games. I know that the four upcoming years are all going to be about hard work, sacrifice and dedication.”

For Bosredon, Tokyo Paralympic Games are a walkway that’ll lead him to the French Paralympic Games. Until then, he will be pedaling with his hands in the garage for three to four hours a day, sometimes more when a big competition is coming.

But, the issue with home training aka pedaling with hands in the garage is that, in the long term, it can cause “overheating”. He explains that his heart rate is much higher when he provides a static effort (at home training): he has less time to rest and to decompress between two sessions due to the lack of inertia. “When I am home training, I am either pedaling like a maniac or recovering from a previous effort, there is no in between.”

When I ask him, what his biggest fear during the pandemic is, Mathieu does not hesitate for a second. “Unhealthy routine,” he immediately tells me. He remembers with great details the “terrifying nightmare” he had at the beginning of social distancing and stay at home measures. He had not won any medals in Tokyo and was booed by the audience who was yelling “impostor” at him from the bleachers. He remembers staying in the middle of the crowd and blaming himself for the unappropriated routine that he had adopted during quarantine. “I need to be challenged every day, I need novelty and I need good pressure, it is my win-win cocktail and that’s what drives me.” “I need to be extra focused on both my mental and physical health during the quarantine, it is way more important that performance and muscles.”

Mathieu puts on his “French team Paralympic Games” jacket from Rio Paralympic Games in 2016 and that is only at this specific moment that I notice how muscular his arms are like, very muscular. Without me saying anything- I was trying to act like a normal person but, really, nothing was normal in this situation- he noticed my shocked (I guess) face expression and, with a sarcastic tone, pointed out: “Everything in the arms, nothing in the legs”.

As Mathieu Bosredon’s day is coming to an end after we hung up the phone, the 2015 World champion is already focused on his future achievements for the days to come. On his home training program is written in capital letters ‘ENDURANCE’. “I like this word; I like the idea of being able to be efficient and consistent on the long run. Humanity also needs endurance to overcome the Coronavirus crisis.”

Edith Rousselot