Resilience for victory in rowing
When you can, you must!
By Alexis Sanchez, Systems Engineer at SCLE SFE, who talks about his sporting career
How did you get into rowing?
When I was in rehab, I didn't yet have my prostheses, so I didn't need a sport that involved my lower limbs. What I really needed was something that involved my arms. In fact, there was a handisport day organized at the Bourbonne rehabilitation center in Aubagne.
My coach came looking for me, saw that I had potential and that's how I started rowing on the water.
One thing led to another and I started competing. I started to get results and set myself the goal of taking part in the summer 2024 sporting event.
With the "La Vie Sourire" association, you're training intensively with a view to qualifying for the Summer 2024 sports games. What makes the difference between being first or not?
Rowing is not a thankless sport in the sense that the more you put in, the more you'll be rewarded. Victory comes down to mental strength and the level of investment in training. In my opinion, the one who has prepared the most should win
Your determination also seems to be fueled by your life's journey and your disability. Can you tell us a little about that?
I had the accident when I was 21, so obviously at 21 you're very carefree. You think that everything is easy, that life is easy, that bad things only happen to other people. That brought me down to earth very quickly!
I also realized how lucky I was to still be alive, to still be able to be here, to do all kinds of sports, to be able to walk because I'm in a situation where I benefit from a prosthesis.
I've lost my legs, but I can still walk because there's a technology that enables people with my condition to walk again. I feel pretty lucky compared with people who wouldn't have the autonomy I have now.
It's given me a lot of perspective on life. I think what has helped me the most is that I've realized how strong I am. Disability is an adversity, and it's often said that it's in adversity that we really realize our true nature, our true strength.
It was through this adversity that I realized the strength I had, the mentality I had, and what I had deep down inside.
You recently won a major race. Can you tell us about that experience?
It was a competition, my first international regatta, on the future Olympic basin, in Vaires-sur-Marne, near Paris, where the summer 2024 sporting event will take place.
In this competition, there was the French number one at the time, French champion in 2021 and participant in the Tokyo sports games. During a race, we were side by side in the same lane. The race began, and I started off stronger than him, but there was a small problem: I lost my prosthesis. I'd barely covered 50 meters. I lost concentration for a second and hit a buoy, two buoys. You have to realize that when we take a beating, we're not far from capsizing, which means we lose a lot of time. So I take one, two, three... My prosthesis doesn't recover. He must have overtaken me. He's made an extra gap. So I tell myself there's no choice: I've still got 1950 metres to go. I've got to give it everything I've got and try to find a rhythm that I thought was unattainable and see if I can keep it up to the end. It's my only chance of winning this race. And that's what I did! In the last 500 metres, I overtook him. Naturally, I was overjoyed, and that's when it all came together at the end. It really was my best race ever.
You also work at Equans, in the digital innovation department of the SCLE SFE entity. How does your sporting temperament help you in your work?
This rigor required at the highest level of sport leads us to adopt a similar approach in the professional world. When you have lofty, professional goals, you have to put in place a plan of action, you have to have a certain distance, a certain vision of short-, medium- and long-term objectives.
The perspective I try to gain through disability and high-level rowing helps me a lot in my professional performance.
What's your motto?
So my motto is from Napoleon: "When you want, you can, and when you can, you must!" It's the second part that I find really interesting. We're lucky to be in the situation we're in, we'll always find something worse. So for people who aren't as lucky as we are, I think we owe it to ourselves to achieve our goals and give our all to whatever we do
