Narbonne: the French multi-activity shared sports championship expected in May
The UNSS (Union Nationale Sport Scolaire), the Adapted Sports Committee of Aude and the Handisport Committee, partners in the organization of the French Shared Sports Championship, presented the competition during an educational press conference with students at Lycée Beauséjour. The Trans’Occitanie takes place from May 19 to 24.
Shared sport is a form of physical activity of which Philippe Chotard is one of the creators, with Philippe Hiverneau and Jean-Luc Canal, resulting from an experience aimed at making school sport accessible to students with disabilities. « It aims to integrate students with disabilities into the able-bodied and thus allow a transformation of the gaze from one to the other, and vice versa. I mean reciprocally“, specifies Philippe Chotard. “The teams are therefore made up of able-bodied and disabled people, regardless of the disability (physical or cognitive) and regardless of the level of this disability.«
Benoît Kief, UNSS departmental director, presents the terms of this championship in the « multi-activity » category. It will take place from May 16 to 19. Accommodation and catering for the 28 teams from colleges and high schools will be in Gruissan, as well as the race for studs, race for posts and the artistic challenge. The biathlon event (running and blowgun shooting) will take place in Narbonne at the Egassiarial stadium. « The essential values are sharing, sport being a pretext; relationships between students are developed. Instead of discarding some of them, we adjust the rules (expanding the target, shortening the distance, adding points, etc.) so that everyone has their place and their role.« .
The press conference was also educational because it was led by Emma Aubert and Estéban Frant, two young student reporters from Beauséjour who are considering careers in the media. Benoît Kief specifies « shared sport is also an opportunity to offer integration into training other than that of competitive sportsman, such as communication work, referee, coach, first aider or interpreter. »
Asked about the situation of people with disabilities in our department, Romain Fantaccino, communication officer for the Handisport Committee of Aude, explains: » There is still progress to be made in certain activities. There is disparity in the various territories, we are certainly behind, but it is moving in the right direction and it is changing more and more.« Since its creation in 1990, shared sport has continued to show its relevance and effectiveness by supplementing integration through sharing in its objective of exchanges and mutual modifications on the views of people with disabilities towards able-bodied and vice- poured.
