Refugee athlete and guide united in their quest for Paralympic gold

A week before the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Guillaume Junior Atangana and his guide and fellow refugee Donard Nyamjua received a surprise call from the President of the International Paralympic Committee, Andrew Parsons. Junior, as many call him, was overjoyed and touched when the President informed him that he would be carrying the flag into the Opening Ceremony for the Refugee Paralympic Team, accompanied by Donard.

“I’m very moved and happy really to have this announced by the President. It gives me shivers and I’m really happy. I can already picture it in my head. I see myself as a big champion, the one who made his dream come true.”

To understand the significance of this to Junior, one must take a closer look at his incredible journey as a refugee Para athlete and what he has accomplished on the track.

At a running track in the small West Yorkshire town of Cleckheaton in the north of England a month before the Paris 2024 Paralympics, people of all ages ignore a summer downpour to go through their paces in preparation for that evening’s athletics league fixture.

Some practice pushing off from the starting blocks while others jog around the track. Two men stand out as they go through a series of dashes, hops, high kicks, and lunges in unison, connected by a short tether with hoops at either end that they each hold.

One of the men is vision-impaired sprinter Junior, 25. The other is his guide, Donard, 32. At Paris 2024, they will compete in the 400m T11 events as part of the Refugee Paralympic Team. (Athletes in the T11 class are severely visually impaired and compete blindfolded with a guide runner.)

Junior will line up later at the Games in the 100m with his guide Israel Malachi-Harrison.

Together with seven other Para athletes competing across six sports, they are part of the largest-ever Refugee Paralympic Team. They are hoping to build on the historic success of the Refugee Olympic Team in Paris and represent the hopes and dreams of 120 million forcibly displaced people around the world, including an estimated 18 million with disabilities.

Aiming high

In their final race before the Games, they went to Cleckheaton to compete against able-bodied athletes over 200m. They are cheered on from the sidelines by fellow members of the Bradford, Keighley and Skipton (BKS) Disability Athletics Club where they train, as well as their coach, Janet-Alison Arkwright, who has been working with them since soon after they arrived in the United Kingdom as asylum-seekers in October 2022.

At the time, Junior spoke no English and Donard was suffering from a quad injury that made it difficult for him to walk, let alone run. Since then, she says, they have made “massive progress”.

“They believe now, that’s the biggest difference,” she says. “They’re stronger, they’re happier and they actually believe they can do it.”

By “it”, she means not only winning a medal in Paris but breaking the world record in the 400m T11 event.

Watching them explode out of the starting blocks and overtake all the athletes to win the race in a personal best time, such a feat does not seem far-fetched. The pair already came tantalizing close to the podium after coming fourth in the 400m T11 event at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics while representing their country.

“I want to win a gold medal in Paris,” says Junior after the race at Cleckheaton. “Here in the UK, I have everything I need to do my sport well and I feel ready.”

A love of sports

When he was a young boy growing up in West Africa, Junior’s sole ambition was to become the world’s greatest footballer. But at the age of 8, his vision began to deteriorate and by the age of 12, he had lost his sight entirely.

“I didn’t leave my room for several months. I was thinking everything was finished with sports,” he recalls. “But I made a friend who helped me, and I started running.”

Running helped restore his confidence and his love of sports. “When I’d just lost my sight, it wasn’t easy for me; I was worried about walking. But when I ran, I didn’t feel worried.”

Junior began working with a coach who also became his guide runner and, together, they went on to win several medals in international competitions. Eventually, he became too fast for his coach and started looking for a new guide. He found his match in Donard Ndim Nyamjua, a national 800m champion in his own right who lived nearby and was willing to try to be a guide runner.

“Just like brothers”

According to Arkwright, being a guide runner takes certain qualities. “They have to have as much drive as the runner, but they also have to remember it’s not about them,” she says. “They have to be athlete-focused.”

For Donard – seven years Junior’s senior – it is also a question of physical fitness. “To guide someone like Junior, you need to be up to the task,” he laughs. “When I finish training with him, I ask the coach to give me extra work because I have to keep up the pace.”

Running in perfect sync requires constant training and a strong bond. One of the biggest challenges the pair faced together was Donard’s injury. “It was not easy to train,” says Junior. “We had to adapt a lot of exercises.”

One of those adaptations involved Donard using his voice to guide Junior towards him and helping him to use a treadmill.

Since moving to the UK and being linked up with a support worker for people with visual-impairments, Junior has also learned how to walk with a white cane, and do other tasks for himself such as taking a train or bus or making himself a hot drink. He is studying English and braille at a local college while Donard is studying IT and English. Both men can now lead more independent lives, although they still share a room in the family home of BKS assistant coach Val Lightowler. She took them in last December when they were struggling to get to training from their asylum-seeker accommodation.  

“We’re just like brothers because we’ve lived together for nearly three years now,” says Donard. “At times we have our differences – we shout at each other, we cry together.”

Sport, and their determination to compete in another Paralympics, has helped them through some of their toughest moments. “When I arrived here, I didn’t know anyone, and the climate also wasn’t easy. But every time I go training, I feel happy. I spend the day with my sport,” says Junior.

In Paris, he wants to send a message to other refugees and people with disabilities that “anything is possible.”

“You have to be patient and you have to believe in your God and yourself. I want to show the world that being blind doesn’t mean your life is over; you can still do great things.”

This article was first published by UNHCR here.