By: Jean -Paul Savart – AIPS Executive Committee membePARIS, April 9, 2020 –
Competitions are suspended. Training is prohibited. In France, as in the majority of other countries, in order to maintain physical condition, high-level athletes are bodybuilding, doing fitness and stretching exercises at home. Most share their experience on the web and provide advice to confined neophytes. It is their way of participating in the collective fight against the coronavirus.
A world champion mountain biker has gone a step further. He continues to train legally and in the service of others. Every day, Christophe Bétard travels the mountain roads and paths of his department, Voges, on his bike in search of the most fragile and isolated. He delivers, free of charge, medicine and provisions. Word of mouth and social network calls have multiplied.
To meet the demand, a whole group of mountain bikers has joined him. “We are athletic, we are in good health and we want to help people in need,” explains the world mountain bike champion. In addition to helping isolated people, Christophe Bétard and his team facilitate the work of liberal nurses who give them instructions, preparing their arrival in remote areas.
The world mountain bike champion and his friends will emerge from the crisis perfectly trained thanks to a united action unanimously welcomed in the Vosges department.
The rugby player and his broom
In France, many other sportspeople have abandoned any idea of training and have completely dedicated themselves to the sick. This is the case for many rugby players, international or not, who, off the pitch are doctors, physiotherapists, nursing assistants or health-care givers. Their example is hailed by the public. The rugby world, women and men, was the first in France to show support for health-care givers and the sick through various united actions; the story of rugbyman Bakary Meïte has been highlighted in the French media.
Bakary Meïte, a third line of US Carcassonne, in the South West of France, happens to be confined at his nephew’s in Paris. Instead of trying to reach his home and his club, he joined a Paris hospital as an “honorary cleaning agent”. Every day he gets up at dawn to, with a broom, sponges and disinfectant products, clean everything that is close at hand in the hospital: switches, handles, handrails, windows …
“Quite honestly, it’s hard,” confesses the rugby colossus. “But I get so much thanks from the health-care givers, allowing them to be completely dedicate to their real job. It is very rewarding. I feel useful.”
His home club of Carcassonne, where he is an executive player, has not ask him to return home to maintain his physical condition.
