The opening medal event at the Paris 2024 Paralympics delivered a silver and a bronze for Team LGBTQ.
The excited home fans in the National Velodrome were hoping it might be gold for Marie Patouillet, the 36-year-old born in nearby Versailles who had a pair of third-place paracycling finishes in Tokyo.
Instead, it was Caroline Groot of the Netherlands who claimed victory, upgrading her own bronze in this event from three years ago. Groot had also set a new C5 world record time during the morning qualifying session.
Finishing third on this occasion was Canada’s Kate O’Brien, who had been the silver medalist in Tokyo.
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O’Brien is due to compete again in the road individual time trial on Wednesday, while Patouillet has four more shots at a medal on her itinerary at these Games.
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The podium trio were all beneficiaries of a shock DNF for Great Britain’s Kadeena Cox, the reigning Paralympic champion and C4 world record holder.
Cox went down at the first turn on her run after appearing to lose her balance, thus ending her title defense in heartbreaking fashion.
For both Patouillet and France, it will be a relief to have got on the medal table so early in the Games, with the expectation of more to come.
Visibility is hugely important to her as well. She considers herself a women’s rights and LGBTQ activist, competing at the 2022 UCI World Championships — which was held at the same Paris venue as these Paralympics events — with her hair dyed in rainbow colors.
She is also an ambassador for Pride House France and won the Sportswoman of the Year Award from French LGBTQ magazine Tetu last September.
In an interview with Reuters that same month, Patouillet explained how she was taking inspiration from British Olympians and Paralympians who are gay and who had used their platform to speak up for equality.
“Athletes who left an impression on me through their activist commitments to fight against discrimination, they are rather Anglo-Saxon,” she said.
“In France, it’s still complicated to find athletes who really take a stand on these subjects.”
Patouillet worked as a doctor in the French Army for 10 years but is now a GP, based in the department of Yvelines. She is married to her wife, the actor Soraya Garlenq.
The Reuters profile from a year ago noted that in their apartment hangs a poster which reads: “Dykes are family. I’ve got all my sisters with me.”
