A few days ago in São Paulo, Argentina closed 2021 with a true Maracanazo, another one, to crown the year in which Messi lifted the Copa América in Brazil. This time the honor went to Boccia’s Argentine National Team: after obtaining two gold and three silver medals in the Copa América, the Albiceleste team assured their participation in the World Cup to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2022.
The third most practiced Paralympic sport in the world (first are athletics and basketball) is an adapted precision and strategy game that was originally designed for people with cerebral palsy, but its popularity was so great that it invited him to continue adapting and currently It can be practiced without restrictions by people with any type of neurological disability that affects their motor function.
“It is for people who like to think and look to turn things around, in life.” This is how Stefanía Ferrando defines it, who assures that in 2016 his life changed completely thanks to the boccia. Then he went from swimming as a rehabilitation method for his spinal muscular atrophy to traveling to Tokyo, to represent Argentina in the Paralympic Games, from working in the Municipality of his native Gualeguay to hanging two gold medals in the last South American Tournament, from listening to excited for the anthem on television to be heard from the loudspeakers of a stadium thanks to her.
“I did not know that there was a sport that I could dedicate myself to professionally. And that doesn’t just mean going to a club, throwing a couple of balls, and going home. Dedicating oneself to sports means training many hours, working on mental health with a sports psychologist, taking care of diet, analyzing rivals and matches, very punctilious tasks that are carried out during the year to be able to arrive optimally at each competition ”, details the two-time South American champion of the individual category BC3.
Boccia is played individually, in pairs, or even with an assistant, in the case of athletes with severe limb limitation. At the beginning of a game, each team is assigned six balls of one color – red or blue, of different densities – and the match begins when a white ball (the pachín) is thrown, which remains in the center of the playing field.
The court measures 12.5 m long by 6 m wide and has the launching area divided into six boxes, from which each participant throws their balls without stepping on the lines and using their hands, feet, head or some kind of gutters arranged as a help instrument, to get as close as possible to the cue ball. Whoever achieves it with greater precision wins. The matches have four rounds – in the case of doubles, they have six – and each player can shoot three balls. Each round lasts between four and seven minutes and there are four categories given by the conditions of the competitors.
Equal chance
Just as access to sport is a right, being able to make a living from it is truly a privilege. Leonardo Anzalas found out when his brother Angel told him that he wanted to be a high-performance athlete. They did it together, and together they reached the National Team: “It was difficult to train from Monday to Friday, walking 30 or 40 blocks with a wheelchair and sports equipment in tow, because in Moreno until a few years ago there was not even public transport with ramps. We were going to train the same, even if it was rainy or cold. It was hard, it cost, but when we arrive and we remember all that previous trajectory, the reward is double ”.
Thus, Leonardo became his brother’s assistant in every competition. Angel has cerebral palsy with a dystonic and spastic condition and Leonardo is her assistant. Together they obtained the gold medal for teams in the last continental competition, with Stefanía Ferrando and Micaela Salvador.
“People with disabilities must manage themselves in sport all the time. Angel now has to buy a material that is worth around $ 1,200 and if he doesn’t have it, he can’t compete. So one must move strings, talk to contacts, municipalities, knock on doors … and it’s a shame because an athlete should be able to make a living from this, because he trains every day, sacrifices time and really takes it as a job, with that responsibility. If you do not train properly, you cannot be high-performance, and scholarships are not enough, it is known, “argues Leonardo in view of what will be 2022, the year of the World Cup.
Among the many physical benefits that the practice of boccia includes, such as reinforcing balance in the trunk, providing strength to the extremities and improving mental capacity, motivation and confidence are the most valued skills. “This gave importance to his life,” says Leonardo about his brother and this discipline that helps improve the personal and social development of people with disabilities, helping to give a higher quality to their leisure time, and strengthening their emotionality. , control and perception.
Every December 3, the “International Day of Persons with Disabilities” is celebrated. That day, Stefanía Ferrando uploaded to Instagram a video titled “No matter how you do it, just do it”, in which someone is seen performing Michael Jackson’s classic moonwalk with the song ‘Billie Jean’. Then she is seen dancing it in her wheelchair and the phrase: “People with disabilities are not examples of life, we are people who do what we can with what we have and now.”
They are only two realities of infinity that exist. “Being people with disabilities, we are already seen as someone else, as an angelic being, as good children, and not as people who also have a lot of dreams, goals and lives like any other. We seek to be immersed in society, not to be distinguished ”, reflects Stefanía Ferrando, number 3 in the world in the female ranking.
Athletes with disabilities are often described with stories of overcoming, highlighting a condition of “life examples” that often neglect their sports careers, achievements and competitive merits. “It would be good to stop looking at us from the place of pity, but rather from the effort and everything we do to reach the objectives – he suggests – like a ‘normal’ athlete, with that stick”. Because in that diversity is the inclusion and the real possibility of a sport for everyone.
* Noelia Tegli.
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