Sarah, Vanessa and Mélissa are training hard before their participation in the Raid Amazones which will take place in Sri Lanka on March 27th. Participating in this women’s raid allows them to take up a sporting challenge but also to support a cause close to their hearts, since Sarah herself was a victim of stroke.
They had been thinking about it for three years. They were already to participate last year but the Covid decided otherwise. This year is the right one for the 20th anniversary of the Raid Amazones. Sarah Panigada, Vanessa Fleury and Melissa Mouraud-Bierry will start the Raid Amazones on March 27 in Sri Lanka. On the program: mountain biking, trail running, canoeing and archery. They are the Raid’hot 2021.
“We’re going there to cross the finish line and to have a good time together.” Vanessa Fleury is 42 years old. She is a cruise manager in conversion to an organic market gardening activity. “We train regularly on our side and we meet once a month for a full weekend in Raid conditions. We train the whole body. Considering what awaits us, we need a complete physical preparation.“
“And you also have to prepare the mind”, adds Mélissa Mouraud-Bierry, computer scientist. At 45, she is passionate about horse riding, running and cycling. “It’s going to be 33 degrees with 80% humidity. So the mind will be very important if all three of us want to finish.”
Divided into teams of two or three, 300 “Amazons” challenge each other for 6 days, in the morning, in disciplines such as mountain biking, canoeing, trail running, archery: 30 to 50 km of mountain biking, Trail between 10 and 20 km, canoë between 12 to 16 km at sea or lake and up to 20 km in the river in the direction of the current, tarchery on an 80 cm target at a distance of 10 m.
In the afternoon, the “Amazons” set out to meet the people and the local culture.
The youngest of the team is called Sarah Panigada. She suffered two strokes when she was 28. Today, eight years later, she wants to show that sport is a good way to prevent strokes. “We wanted to challenge each other. We met in Vietnam. We like to laugh and surpass ourselves. There in addition we do it to defend a cause that affects us.
It is indeed to raise awareness of the risks of stroke and to make the association known. France AVC37 that these three friends turned towards others embark on the adventure of the Raid Amazones.
This Saturday, February 26, after their training, Sarah, Mélissa and Vanessa held a stroke awareness stand at the quiet hour shopping center in Tours. “We chose to support the France AVC37 association because I had two strokes and it was obvious”, says Sarah. “Thanks to our challenge, we give visibility to the association and we participate with them in prevention actions like here. “
The association France AVC37 is an association of patients affected by stroke. There are 49 branches covering 84 departments. Its objective: to talk about it to better prevent risks.
“The France AVC37 association also connects stroke victims with each other. This allows them to be reassured and to feel supported in difficult times”, says Sarah Panigada.
Each year, 150,000 people are victims of stroke, more than 110,000 are hospitalized and 30,000 die. This pathology represents the first national cause of acquired disability in adults: more than 500,000 French people live with sequelae.
