Marie Patouillet is world champion in para-cycling and has decided to talk about her sport and denounce its misogyny and lesbophobia that persist in this environment. If ever his journey made a child dream, his wish would be to tell the truth about what the world of sport is today.
Incessant remarks
Since she was little, sport has been a way for Marie Patouillet to release all her emotions, especially those that are the most unpleasant to bear, such as anger or sadness. His foot is malformed, meaning that part of his foot is missing and there is a size difference between his two legs. She was operated on while she was growing up and the question of sports practice arose very quickly. The surgeon told her that with this disability, she would no longer be able to run, so she was left with two choices: swimming or cycling. This is how she got into cycling.
“We get comments all the time about our bodies as women.” says the cyclist. And this physical malformation, in addition to being a woman, caused her many comments. That, from a very young age. Furthermore, Marie Patouillet is someone who likes to experience playing with her physique. For the road cycling World Championships in Canada, she dyed her hair leopard. While the young woman won the title of world championnot everyone only talked about his haircut…
A world of men
For the cyclist, mental loads pile up : “As a woman and lesbianthat still makes two discriminating labels“. During the Tokyo Olympics, the cyclist was accompanied by a team and staff composed only of men. She says that outside the track, the jokes sexist are numerous. It’s an environment where she doesn’t feel integrated, and in which she can’t be herself: “I feel mocked, humiliated, even if the jokes are not all about me.“What she hears regularly is:”If you didn’t want a sexist sport, you had to do a girls’ sport“, “I didn’t think you were so weak“.
The cyclist explains that this sexism and homophobia, it is often insidious and is expressed in the form of jokes, behavior or even differences in treatment. Women will have to just take shorts adapted for men on the bike: “And we behind are wounds“. During the period of the Paris 2024 Games, athletes do not have the right to express their socio-political commitments. “The intimate is political and everything that happens upstream” she declares. Marie Patouillet has decided to speak out. Convinced that it is by speaking and recounting the violence that exists that things will change.