Céline Derouallière, Athlète Triomphe Collectif

Hello everyone,

My name is Céline Derouallière, Athlète Triomphe Collectif, I'm 25 and I'm going to tell you my story...

But first I'd like to say a big thank you to AMEG Group for supporting me this year.

My story

My story begins on December 8, 1998. I was born with an unexpected visual feature. My parents discovered at birth that I had agenesis of the left arm. To put it simply, I'm missing my left forearm, but you'll see that despite everything, that doesn't stop me from living life to the full and having great experiences...

I come from Nîmes, where I lived for almost 18 years with my family. I went to school there and passed a scientific baccalaureate. At the same time, I did a bit of sport, starting with dance, then horse-riding and handball, and skiing during the winter vacations. For me, sport was a bit like a challenge: how to get there like the others, take up the challenges and above all how to win 😉...

A decisive turning point

For this article, I have to choose to tell you about a specific moment in my life. So I've chosen to tell you about the period that literally changed my life, when I was 17.

It was in 2014, during a family winter vacation in a small resort in the Pyrenees, that an instructor told me about Handisport and in particular about a great skier: Marie Bochet.

He was a former guide to a visually impaired alpine skier. He suggested I take part in the French Handisport Cup in the Alps.

The following year, in 2015, this guide renewed its proposal. This time, my mother and I responded positively.

The following weekend, I found myself in Chamrousse for my first Handisport Ski competition. Quite astonishing for someone from Nîmes, wasn't it? It has to be said that my style, technique and equipment at the time were far from being up to skiers' standards, but that didn't discourage me. After all, you learn by doing...

In the end, I liked the competition and ended up moving to Grenoble the following academic year to join theUniversité Grenoble Alpes to study for a degree in Physics Chemistry Mathematics and Mechanics, as I had a dual project: becoming a Physics Chemistry teacher. I also had to find a ski club willing to take me in and a gym to train in... I might as well tell you that my timetable changed radically, as I went from being a simple sportswoman training once a week to training up to 3 times a week and skiing 3 times a week.

Then I joined theFrench Youth / Ski Handisport team, with numerous training courses and international competitions in places like the Netherlands and Austria. I also had to find a prosthesis to improve my balance.

But how do you reconcile everything? With or without a prosthesis?

Soon, ...the continuation of my adventures ...