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WINTER OLYMPICS

OLYMPICS

Skater Gjersem follows in Henie footsteps

Norwegian figure skater Anne Line Gjersem was following in the footsteps of illustrious countrywoman Sonja Henie when she took to the ice in Sochi on Wednesday night.

Skater Gjersem follows in Henie footsteps
The 20-year-old from Malmo is the first Norwegian to qualify for figure skating in the Olympics since 1964. Photo: Damien Meyer/AFP

The 20-year-old from Malmo, the first Norwegian to qualify for figure skating in the Olympics since 1964, advanced to the free skating final after the short programme.

Norway were a figure skating superpower in the early Olympics with figure skating legend Henie winning gold three times — in 1928, 1932, and 1936.

Henie was also a ten-time world champion before finding success in Hollywood where she was one of the highest paid stars during the height of her career.

"I'm very happy that Norway has a spot here. I'm very proud to represent my country and I'm very excited," said Gjersem after taking the 24th and final qualifying spot in the short programme.

"I'm quite satisfied with my programme. It could be a little bit better, the first jump, and I could have had more speed. I could feel it in my body that I was a bit tense. I enjoyed skating and was trying to do my best."

She scored 48.56 points and it was enough to claim the final qualifying spot for Thursday's free skate final.

She became the first Norwegian figure skater to compete at the Olympic Winter Games in 50 years after qualifying at the Nebelhorn Trophy in September 2013.

Born to a Norwegian father and a Philippines mother, Gjersem wore a light blue sequined outfit as she skated to "Maria and the Violin's Sting" by Ashram.

Her twin sister Camilla Marie Gjersem is also a competitive figure skater, but watched from home.

The twins started skating in 2002, and four years later, where taken into the Sonja Henie project to prepare them for future Olympics.

In 2008-2009 she debuted in the Junior Grand Prix and Junior World Championships, and took the bronze medal in both the European Youth Olympic Festival and the Nordic Championship.

Both sisters have set their sights on the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea.

"She's (her twin) at home in Norway in the studio watching. I face-timed (on the phone) with her before my programme.

"She's always says positive things to me and she's my biggest supporter."

South Korea's Kim Yu-Na remained on course to defend her Olympic women's crown as she leads Russia's Adelina Sotnikova and Italy's Carolina Kostner by less than a point.

Kim led the 30-skater field with 74.92 as Sotnikova achieved 74.64 and Kostner 74.12.

Kim is bidding to become just the third woman to win consecutive titles after Henie, and Germany's Katarina Witt in 1984 and 1988.

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SPORT

The French Paralympic star who survived war, grief and mutilation

The Paralympics is full of stories of disabled athletes overcoming the odds to achieve sporting greatness but few bear the trauma of Jean-Baptiste Alaize.

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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