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Grimm delivers Germany’s first Olympic gold for slalom canoe

The German Olympic team collected its first gold medal of the Beijing Games on Tuesday when 21-year-old Alexander Grimm paddled his canoe to victory in the slalom.

Published: 12 August 2008 12:59 CEST

Grimm delivers Germany's first Olympic gold for slalom canoe

Grimm paddling to victory. Photo: DPA

Grimm’s gold secures Germany’s position as Olympic champion in the discipline, as it follows Thomas Schmidt’s first place in Athens four years ago.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” Grimm told reporters in Beijing immediately afterwards. “This has been my dream since I was a child. I can’t believe it.

“Everything just fit together. I have never had such a feeling during a competition. I think I will only be able to really believe it when I have the gold hanging around my neck.”

He beat Frenchman Fabien Lefevre and Togoan Benjamin Boukpeti in the slalom to claim Germany’s 18th medal of the Games, but the first gold.

He only made fourth in the first run, but dominated during the second run to take the lead, and keep it.

Boukpeti provided an upset by leading in the first run, while his bronze medal is the first ever in the canoe discipline to be won by an African.

Later in the day Ole Bischof collected Germany’s second gold in Judo, with a surprise win against the Korean Kim Jaebum in the 81-kilo class.

And Germany’s three-day eventing team made it look easy when they won the first gold medal of the Olympic equestrian events convincingly from runners-up Australia.

Germany’s Hinrich Romeike, on his gelding Marius, clinched the gold for his team as the last of 57 riders to take on the 13 fences. His one fault, which cost him four penalty points, may have been a personal disappointment for a man who has taken his hobby to Olympian heights.

But after Australia’s Megan Jones and her mount Irish Jester, the penultimate combination in the show-jumping, failed to go clear, the gold was only going one way.

This victory was consolation of sorts for Germany’s bitter loss in the Athens Games in 2004, when the gold medal was taken away from the team and given to France after Bettina Hoy, one of the best-known riders in the world, was penalized for crossing the starr line twice.

dpa/afp

The French Paralympic star who survived war, grief and mutilation

Jean-Baptiste Alaize training in Antibes. All photos: AFP

The 29-year-old French sprinter and long-jumper, who features in Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix released on Wednesday, was just three years old when he lost his right leg.

Not by accident or illness but by the brutal hack of a machete.

A child caught up in the civil war in Burundi in October 1994, he watched as his mother was beheaded.

“For years, every time I closed my eyes, I had flashes. I saw my mother being executed in front of me,” he tells AFP after a training session in Antibes, running his finger across his throat.

The killers left the Tutsi boy for dead. Alaize carries a large scar on his back but he was also slashed across the neck, right arm and right leg by his Hutu neighbours.

He woke up in hospital several days later, alive but missing the lower part of his right leg which had had to be amputated.

“With my mother, we ran, we ran, but we didn't manage to run far,” he says. “We were executed 40 metres from the house.”

A decade later, after coming to France in 1998 and being adopted by a French family, he joined the athletics club in Drôme.

Fitted with a prosthetic limb, he discovered that running gave him his first night without a nightmare since the attack.

“From my first steps on the track, I had the impression that I had to run as long as possible, so as not to be caught,” says Alaize who now lives in Miami.

“I remember like it was yesterday my first night after this session, it was… wow! I had cleared my mind. I was free.

“My energy, my hatred, were focussed on the track. I understood that sport could be my therapy.”

He tried horseback riding and enjoyed it, reaching level six, out of seven, until he pulled the plug.

“It was my horse that let off steam and not me,” he laughs.

The psychologist did not work out either.

“She made me make circles and squares. After a few sessions I told her that I wanted to change my method.”

However he did click with his school physical education teacher, who directed him to athletics after he had anchored his team to a spectacular “comeback” win in a 4×100 metre relay.

His classmates had no idea he was an amputee. He had hidden it to avoid teasing and more racial abuse.

“I was called 'bamboula', dirty negro, the monkey. It was hard.”

Fortunately, the Alaize family, who adopted him after he had spent five years in a Bujumbura orphanage where his father had abandoned him, gave Jean-Baptiste a base and a home that he had not had for years.

“When I arrived here I didn't know it was possible,” he said.

“I had lost that side, to be loved. I still can't understand how racism can set in, when I see my parents who are white, and I am a black child… they loved me like a child.”

His parents, Robert and Daniele, had already adopted a Hutu child from Rwanda, renamed Julien.

John-Baptist was originally called Mugisha. It means “the lucky child” which is not quite how things worked out. His new family name, though, suits him better. Alaize is a pun in French for 'a l'aise' – at ease.

The French disabled sports federation spotted the prodigy, and he began collecting his first trophies, including four junior world titles at long jump, three of them with world records.

“It was starting to change my life and I was happy to represent France,” he says.

He went to the Paralympic Games in London (2012) and Rio (2016), where he finished fifth in the long jump, just five centimetres short of the bronze medal.

Now armed with his state-of-the-art prosthesis, which he nicknamed Bugatti, he was dreaming of taking a step up at Tokyo 2020 and going home to France with a medal but the postponement of the Games has decimated his sponsorships.

“I'm still looking to compete at Tokyo 2021 or 2022 and Paris 2024,” he says.

“If I don't succeed, I will have to turn the page which would be sad.”

He hopes that Rising Phoenix will raise his profile and maybe attract some sponsors.

The documentary's producer Ian Bonhote is in no doubt that Alaize's star is rising.

“He bursts through the screen. His story will resonate,” he says.

“The nine athletes in our documentary all have different backgrounds, but none survived what Jean-Baptiste suffered. His disability was imposed on him in such a savage and violent way.”

Rising Pheonix is available now to view on Netflix.

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