Marie Bochet started skiing at the age of 5. In Sochi in 2014, in PyoengChang in 2018 then more recently in Beijing in March 2022, she will accumulate exploits to become the most successful French athlete in the history of the Paralympic Winter Games (8 titles and 1 silver medal ) at only 24 years old. In January 2022, in Lillehammer (Norway), Marie Bochet won the gold medal in the downhill then in giant at the Para Snow Sports World Championships, her 21st and 22nd world titles.
“Sport has allowed me to learn about myself, to push my limits and to adapt. Through my journey, I would like to inspire other people with disabilities to surpass themselves and do everything to achieve their goals. By showing another face of disability, I would also like my story to help change mentalities. When you believe in it, anything is possible. »
Born in Northern Uganda, Julius Achon OLY grew up in very poor living conditions with his 9 siblings. When he was only 10 years old, he was recruited by soldiers of the Lord’s Resistance Army, together with other 14 children from the same village, and he stayed 3 months in the bush. When he escaped, 9 of his friends were killed by a fighter aircraft and 6 of them made it home.
Julius Achon OLY started to participate in competitions at the age of 12. For his first competition, due to the lack of public transport, he ran 75 km to go to the stadium. Thanks to a scholarship, he was able to pursue his high school studies in Kampala and he represented Uganda in the World Junior Championships in Lisbon in 1994. As he had no proper shoes to run, he had to borrow the shoes from a Kenyan participant and he won his first gold medal in 1500 meters run. In 1995 he won a bronze medal in the Africa Championships in Harare, Zimbabwe. Thanks to athletics, he was given a scholarship to study in Virginia, in the USA, and he competed in the Olympics in Atlanta, in 1996, and Sydney, in 2000.
In 2004, soldiers from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Jospeh Kony killed his mother. This is when he decided then to take care about the orphans of the war by creating the Achon Uganda Association. After the end of the war, in 2007, food ressources were lacking so he decided to start an agricultural project. With the seeds of the Love Mercy project, from Australia, communities could send their children to school, eat, and pay for medical expenses. Other projects have followed: Julius Achon OLY built a health center named after his mother, Kristina Health Center lll, he invested in clean water projects, and he brought electricity to his village as he became a member of the Parliament, in 2016.
Over the years, Mutaz Barshim has stood out as an outstanding athlete. During the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020, he won the gold medal in high jump and decided to share the podium with Gianmarco Tamberi. By sharing the high jump gold medal rather than putting it on the line in a jump-off, he sent a strong message of friendship.
Jean-Baptiste Alaize, Champion for Peace, Olympian and four-time world champion in the under-23 long jump, was a victim of the Tutsi genocide in 1994. When he was only 3 years old, he witnessed the murder of his mother, seriously injured by machete blows and left for dead. He miraculously survived but had to have his tibia amputated. At the age of 7, he was adopted by Danièle and Robert Alaize and settled in a village in the Drôme region of France.
Aminata Makou Traore is a Taekwondoist and the President of APJS Mali, a partner organization from the Peacemakers Project. While sport remains a « poor relation » in Mali, she describes the actions of APJS to accelerate social development in Mali.
« We support the projects of Malian athletes, in particular for their conversion. We help out-of-school children to bring them, through sport, an activity, and an education. We organize seminars for business leaders to convince them of the importance of investing in sports. We are at the origin of an International Forum on Sport, in which Peace and Sport has participated since 2019. But we never lose sight of the specific context of Mali, a country where agriculture still needs a vast amount of manual labour and thousands of villages lack drinking water. We are the first association to bring sport for women to neighbourhoods, through a program called “Sport between neighbours”. We also organized a collective march, the “Parcours des Yelenis”, in collaboration with the Olympic Committee of Mali. »
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