A member of the French cecifoot team since 2007, Gaël Rivière is used to top-level sport and major competitions. This year, he is particularly hoping for victory at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
From his native Réunion, Gaël Rivière has come a long way with a ball at his feet. Like many youngsters, his love of football began with the 98 World Cup.
Blind from birth, he trained from an early age by wrapping a ball in a plastic bag so that he could hear it. A few years later, while studying in Paris, he discovered football for the blind at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles. He was soon noticed and joined the French cecifoot team.
But it was in 2012 that he got his first taste of an extraordinary victory: the French team won the silver medal at the London Paralympic Games. Since then, years of training and effort, highs and lows, have followed one another.
The team won three Euros, the Tokyo Games were a disappointment, but they bounced back and were champions at Euro 2022! A good prelude to arriving strong and confident at this year's Paris Games. Experienced, a fine tactician and a finesse player, Gaël is undeniably one of the team's strongest performers.
© Paris je t'aime
Alongside his career as a top-level sportsman, the 35-year-old practises as a lawyer at the Paris Bar and has accepted positions within various sports and para-sports organisations and associations. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee and has also worked internationally with the IBSA (International Blind Sport Association) as an athletes' representative.
Through sport, this resident of Bondy hopes to change the way people look at the fact that people with disabilities are perfectly capable people. ‘Sport is an extraordinary tool for achieving this,’ he explains, before praising the fact that the Games have led several local authorities and the State to finance sports facilities, in particular those dedicated to para-sport.
One thing is certain, the competition promises to be fierce - it is the biggest competition in the world for cecifoot - at the Paris Paralympic Games. Gaël Rivière and the French will have the advantage of being supported by an entire nation. And whatever happens, sport, and para-sport in particular, will be the winner.
