Like many younsters, Cédric Nankin dreamed of going places as he watched trains thunder past the local railway station in Château-Thierry, a town in Northern France. But as he grew up, his disability—a congenital agenesis of the upper and lower limbs—made rail travel difficult. “My fascination with rail, my personal experience of the hassles facing travellers with disabilities, and very good accounts from friends who worked at SNCF all led to me look into SNCF Athletes Programme,” says Cédric, who was born just north of Paris. He applied for the programme through the French para athletics federation and was accepted. An SNCF employee since July 2020, he worked first as an assistant in project management methods at SNCF Réseau, then as assistant moderator of a career counsellors’ network.

Cédric doesn’t beat about the bush: “Not many employers would allow you to adjust your schedule around training for high-level sports. Without this opportunity, I’d have had to drop out of the French national team. The SNCF Athletes Programme literally changed my life.”
Before joining SNCF Group, he had struggled to find a job, not least because of his disability, which--as he puts it--“scares off a lot of companies”.

After a string of unsuccessful interviews, Cédric followed a friend’s advice and showed up at a gym one day in 2010 in hopes of finding a job. He had an appointment with Ryadh Sallem, founder of CAPSAA, an association dedicated to sports and physical activities for the blind and visually impaired. 
“When I came in, Ryadh said ‘So you’re the guy I’m scheduled to meet? Right, I’ve got something for you.’ Great, I thought: this is one super-efficient dude, he’s already found me a job! But then Ryadh started enthusing about quad-rugby—the old name for wheelchair rugby—and what a blast it would be for me. I had no idea what he was talking about: quads? rugby balls?” 
“I thought he was nuts,” says Cédric with a smile.

Yet just a few days later, Cédric—still focused on getting a job, but curious all the same—accepted Ryadh’s invitation to watch a wheelchair rugby demo. He told Cédric, “You’ve got what it takes. If you get into this sport, you’ll be on your way to the French national team in no time. From there, you’ll head to the Paralympic Games and become one of the best players in your category.”  
Two and a half years later, Cédric was selected for the French team for the first time, then headed off to the Rio Olympics in 2016 and was voted best player in his category (1.5) in the 2018 World Cup. 
“Everything happened just as he said,” recalls Cédric, who still finds it hard to believe.

In addition to telling his fortune, Ryadh Sallem helped the elite athlete—and above all the man—become aware of his own abilities. Before joining SNCF, Cédric had worked at Cap Résilience, a programme promoting sports at physical rehabilitation facilities. It was an opportunity to bring his vision of teamwork to life, creating “genuine team spirit in a field the pressure can be extreme.”

Cédric also learned to cope with pressure on the French national team, where intense physical preparation, training, video sessions to review opponents’ tactics, and travel to and from his home in the north to Group headquarters in Saint-Denis and his Paris-based club became his routine. 
After a jam-packed work week, Cédric kicks back at the weekend, racing electric radio-controlled model cars—his second passion—with friends. “Jumps, rolls, stunts, you name it: we put our buggies through their paces in the fields and on off-road tracks,” he laughs.

The weekend break is vital for Cédric, who heads back to work on Monday morning  focused on teamwork—at SNCF and on the French team, which clinched the European wheelchair rugby championships in early 2022 in Paris, and celebrated a second win at Cardiff’s iconic Millenium stadium in 2023. All in the run-up to this summer’s event of a lifetime—the Paralympic Games Paris 2024.