The athlete - Arnaud Bonnin (France): Lara Marlowe talks to a Special Olympic athlete and his coach in Paris before the French team's departure for Ballina, Co Mayo.
When Arnaud Bonnin arrives in Ballina on Monday, the 22- year-old special athlete may think his birthday has come a month early. Mr Bonnin was born on July 14th, Bastille Day. Every shop window in the Co Mayo town will be festooned with blue, white and red French flags, made by people with learning disability in the local Western Care workshop.
For four days, 68 French special athletes and the 21 people accompanying them will enjoy the finest welcome that Ballina can offer.
"Royal treatment is right," says John Cummins, the retired school principal who heads the town's host committee. "They'll be welcomed here with open arms."
During their four days in Ballina, Mr Bonnin and his French comrades will lunch at historic Coolcronan House, tour the north coast of Mayo, including Enniscrone Beach, and attend a barbecue and a gala evening where they'll meet the French Ambassador to Dublin, Mr Gabriel de Bellescize. On June 20th, the eve of the Special Olympics, they will move to Gormanston College, north of Dublin, and Mr de Bellescize will host a reception at his residence in their honour.
Mr Bonnin says that "winning medals and doing a 200-metre sprint" are the best memories of his life so far. He was one of six special athletes chosen from the Paris region to reward him for training hard in track events and basketball and because he was the only person in his workshop who had never travelled abroad.
"I was happy when they told me," Mr Bonnin said, "but I'm a little scared." How does he imagine Ireland? "With mountains." He has no pre-conceptions about Irish people, but knows the clocks are an hour behind French time.
Michele Gardet is the director of the Atelier de la Boucle de la Seine (Bend in the Seine Workshop) in the Paris suburb of Colombes, where Mr Bonnin was sent three years ago by French social services. She hopes the trip to Ireland will be the "click" that helps Mr Bonnin realise his potential.
"He's very solitary at the residence where he lives and in the workshop. Spending 17 days with the French delegation will help him learn to live in a group."
EuroDisney has invited the French athletes today and tomorrow, to let them get acquainted before they travel together to Ireland.
Mr Bonnin's mother and two sisters live only a few miles away, but he rarely sees them. They are busy, he says sadly, but administrators at the workshop say his family could no longer cope with him. In a previous establishment, he was very agitated.
"He couldn't be in a group," Ms Gardet explains. "If someone said something he didn't like, he started yelling and running. When he came here, we called him 'Speedy Gonzales'. Other coaches give their athletes drugs to dope them up," she jokes. "Here we give them medicine to calm them down."
Without the company of his family and with his days spent learning to pack video cassettes, sport occupies a central place in Mr Bonnin's life. "I always did sports," he says. "I started downstairs, when I lived with my mother in Asnières. From the time I was 10 years old, I would go to the park every evening and run and run."
Under the supervision of his coach, Pascal Leger, Mr Bonnin trains for three hours a week. "Those nights, I'm exhausted. I really sleep well," he says. His dream of Ireland? "I want to win lots of medals and bring them back and have a party. I'll put the medals on show in my room."
Mr Leger will be in Ballina and Dublin to make sure Mr Bonnin understands what is going on and to keep an eye on his medication, hygiene and clothing. "Of the five athletes I'm accompanying, he needs the most supervision," Mr Leger says. Patiently, gently, he twice sends Mr Bonnin back to the locker room because his track clothes are back-to-front. He helps the young man straighten his socks and tucks the label back into his jersey.
Ms Gardet says Mr Bonnin's transformation has been remarkable. "When he came to us, the previous establishment warned us we wouldn't be able to manage," she recalls. She hopes Mr Bonnin will one day be able to hold one of thousands of jobs created for French people with learning disabilities in, for example, gardening, photocopying, packaging.
"He has suffered terribly emotionally," she says. "When he is shown kindness, he blossoms. He really needs affection, but it has to be given to him in small doses, because if you give him too much, he overwhelms you."
The young man is always eager to help, and often takes generous initiatives. For example, he recently spent his own pocket money to buy soft drinks for the participants at a sports session.
Alain Delétoille, national director of Special Olympics France, says the French government devotes a great deal of resources to looking after people with disabilities, but that French attitudes need to evolve. "Sports for the mentally handicapped receive far less attention than sports for those with physical disabilities," Mr Delétoille explains.
"It's because people associate mental handicap with madness. When a man with one leg runs a race, everyone thinks it's great, but when a mentally handicapped person runs, they think, 'he's a moron'. Medically, socially, these people are well cared for, but the public must learn to recognise their value."