Interview with a coach: a podcast featuring Charles Delval, coach of the French para-rowing team
Para-rowing boats were out on the water for the season’s first regatta in early April: the 2021 European Championships in Varese, Italy
Charles Delval takes advantage of a podcast to discuss this event along with a host of other topics.
Identify, practice, guide
The coach of the French para-rowing team also talks about Erika Sauzeau, one of the squad’s highly promising athletes and recent silver medalist at the European Championships*. What makes her so special? Erika’s potential was spotted thanks to the La Relève (“Future Generation”) program launched in 2019 by the French Paralympic & Sports Committee (CPSF) to identify the champions of the future. How does it work? How does it benefit the team and the individual athletes? What ambitions for the future? Charles Delval explains: “It's all about offering people with disabilities the opportunity to come and identify their potential talent, to practice, and be tested in different activities, and to meet coaches and representatives from the sports federations before being directed towards a particular discipline in line with their possibilities and their performance history.”
The crowning moment of a project
Not to mention his impressions when he mentions Tokyo due to start in just a few months’ time: “the culmination of our Paralympic project", but also Paris 2024. “We’re already looking forward to Paris 2024, considering our good fortune of having the Games organized in our home country, and athletes with the talent to go as far as 2024 and to perform well there.”
Groupe BPCE, in its capacity as a partner of the French Olympic & Paralympic Team, naturally supports the La Relève program.
* The mixed coxed four comprised of Margot Boulet, Rémy Taranto, Antoine Jesel, and Erika Sauzeau (coxswain: Robin Le Barreau) came second in the European Championships.