DRC: Grace Wembolua, a basketball player who turned her disability into an asset

Grace Wembolua is a wheelchair basketball player of Congolese origin. At the age of 5, she was amputated of her legs. Now, she is playing for the Hornets du Cannet in France. She is also a model and a musician.

Born in Kinshasa in 1996 to a Congolese father and a Brazilian mother, Grace Wembolua spent her early childhood in France. But in 2001, a tragic fire in her building in Saint-Denis deprived her of her mother and brother. Severely burnt, she also lost her legs. Adopted by her maternal aunt who was also living in Paris, she spent the rest of her childhood with her three daughters.

She became passionate about sports in high school. She practiced track and field and swimming with her classmates, who had no physical disabilities.  In 2012, at the age of 15, she discovered parasport for the first time. She participated, in particular, in a selection test for the France Basketball Pole in Talence. She succeeded and left Paris for Talence where she joined the basketball division. During four years, she followed a Sport-Study program. And very quickly, she became a pillar of the French women’s wheelchair basketball team and the France Espoir team. In 2015, she took part in the European Championship in Worcester (Great Britain). And the following year, in 2016, she participated for the first time in the Paralympic Games in Rio when she was only 20 years old.

After her participation in the Paralympic Games in Rio, she joined the prestigious Hornets-Le Cannet basketball club for which she currently plays. In 2018, she participated in the World Championship in Germany. 

At 24, Grace Wembolua has a rich sports track record. But the path has not always been easy. She had to face the gaze of others, but also had to change her own gaze on her body, she admits. “Parasport has helped me change the way I look at my body and even disability in general,” she told France TV Slash. 

The young sportswoman was able to make her disability a real asset. In addition to being a wheelchair basketball player, she is also a model and a muse for a French cosmetics brand. She also practices music.