PAULA PARETO She is a woman who can do anything. gold medalist in judo in the Olympic Games Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and bronze in Beijing 2008, sand received from a doctor and today, away from the sport that catapulted her to heaven, she shines in MasterChef celebrity, one of the most prominent programs on Argentine television. The little one spoke with THE GRAPHIC and told us all about his life after retirement.
ITS BEGINNINGS
Born on January 16, 1986 in the Buenos Aires district of San Fernando, she is the daughter of Mirta, a pediatrician, and Aldo, a lawyer. “I started in judo because, in truth, my younger brother started, who my father sent him to learn how to defend himself. Judo is a sport that does not have a blow, but in which they do teach you self-defense. He started and I followed him” remembers about her beginnings in the activity that launched her to fame.
Paula’s life, like that of every athlete, had bad moments that even led her to think about abandoning her passion: “There are always times when you have ups and downs, when it’s hard for you to study something or for a particular exam or it’s hard for you in judo to do certain exercises that everyone gets and one doesn’t. Sometimes you go to a competition and it goes wrong. You go to a second competition and it goes wrong again or it doesn’t go as you expected and yes, I think that in those moments the normal thing could be to say ‘bye, I dedicate myself to something else, this is not my thing’“.
With mom Mirta
Asked about the teachings of sport, which has its history beyond the results, she said: “I think I’ve grown a lot more and I’ve learned a lot more from all the falls I’ve had than from the times I went well. From that I kept going and I could see where I was wrong and where I did things right. The idea is to learn not to repeat the mistakes and to repeat the good and move on”.
He also recalled all the difficulties he had to go through in order to reach the place of privilege that he occupies today: “Since I started studying medicine, everyone told me that I wasn’t going to be able to do it. They told me in good faith. They didn’t really want to see me badly, that’s why they told me that I was going to fail in both, both in sport and in medicine”.
Faced with such a sentence, Peque wondered: “Has anyone tried it or did they try it? And most of them didn’t try it. I think that the key is that, try it, make the effort. I am lucky to have a family behind me that supports me in all my decisions and that is also That’s why I always appreciate it. But the key is to try. If you don’t try, you already started losing”.
The day of your professional retirement
THE SUCCESS OF MASTERCHEF
MasterChef Celebrity, the toughest cooking talent show in the world, became a television phenomenon. In its Argentine version, the program hosted by Santiago del Moro, with the participation of a jury made up of chefs Donato De Santis, German Martitegui and Damian Betular, sweeps the rating every night on the Telefe screen.
Paula Pareto is one of the public’s favorites and, in this regard, he told how he was able to apply in the cooking competition all the situations he experienced both in judo and in medicine: “There are times when I realize that I feel like I’m in an operating room, like when you use a scalpel and do certain maneuvers that you also end up doing with food, to clean something or to clear space. They are very specific things and difficult to explain but I see myself in the same situation and maybe they are the things that seem easiest to me when it comes to cooking”.
Many highlight the order with which he develops his participation and the two professional activities of his life also had their implication there: “It is very important to be orderly, to be methodical. I think that both medicine and sport gave me that. It gave me this thing of falling and getting up, especially because it is a new field for me such as the culinary part.”
In Masterchef
Pareto tried to draw a parallel between his beginnings in his dual profession sports-medicine and this new personal facet: “Everything was always very difficult for me; I think it also made me value my sports and medical careers. Today, maybe I am there fighting it in the culinary part because things are not easy for me, but it is also good to realize that. However, I did all my effort to carry it forward and it ended up going much better than I expected. I think that at that point I can compare them: always going forward and doing everything to make it come out”.
On last Sunday’s broadcast Tomás Fonzi won the MasterChef Celebrity challenge and had the opportunity to go up to the balcony of the saved, but first he had to make the difficult decision of choosing a partner who was already saved to continue in the elimination gala. About that tense moment, la Peque maintained: “It was an ugly situation for everyone. For him in particular, because he looked a little sorry, but hey, it’s the rules of the game, he chose me and I think it was one of the calmest times I was at the time of cooking because I really believed that if I had to leave it was because that’s the way it had to be. In the end, no one left, so it looks like I didn’t have to go”.
Finally, in relation to the differences between fighting for Olympic gold and facing the jury, La Peque pointed out: “An Olympic final is difficult and it is also difficult to face a jury of kitchen specialists when you are not a chef. But it is also a great virtue to be able to be there and be told that it is delicious or they tell you that it is not so good, To be told by such a renowned chef is a privilege that not everyone has: you have to take advantage of it and get all the juice out of it”.
With Damián Betular in Masterchef
DJOKOVIC AND COVID
deportation of Novak Djokovic of Australia for refusing to receive the COVID vaccine was a major topic on the world agenda during the first month of 2022. Pareto, in this regard, was clear: “I believe that all decisions are valid, they have to be respected and then each tournament will have its right of admission or not. It is a difficult issue because I believe that no one can force you to do anything with your body that you do not want.”
And deepened: “You have to take into account what happened with Djokovic and with Natalia Vikhlyantseva (NDR: she could not participate because she was vaccinated with Sputink-V, a vaccine whose complete schedule was approved days later by the Australian federal government) so that the rules can be clear for everyone. The right of admission is reserved precisely for those who make the tournament and must be respected, but the decision of each person regarding vaccination must also be accepted”.
The day he won Gold in Rio de Janeiro 2016
THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN
Paula Pareto was the first Argentine woman to be Olympic champion and the first national athlete to carry the Olympic flag at the opening of the Tokyo 2020 Games, representing the American continent. Despite his success and all the barriers he had to break down, he expressed: “I do not feel like a reference in terms of women’s empowerment. I do believe that I can be a reference in that everything is possible in pursuit of one doing things well; As long as one makes an effort and perseveres, I think it is possible to do things that one never believed”.
On the other hand, he said that his expectations were widely exceeded: “I never thought I would carry the flag of an Olympic game and I never thought I would be the first Argentine woman to win a gold medal. I think that marks that it is possible, that there is always a first time and that it can be anyone because I am not a gifted far from it, I’m just a day-to-day worker”.
Carrying the Olympic Flag in Tokyo 2020
HIS PERSONAL LIFE
For the dedication he gave to his sports and university career Paula had to make different sacrifices. The former judoka had to put aside outings with friends, birthdays, family events and the love of a partner: “The truth is that I didn’t think much about the couple issue. I don’t have much time for anything and if someone is in a relationship I think it’s to spend time with them. It’s one of the things that needs to be done the most. I don’t even have time for myself. So it is difficult to be with someone who spends his time traveling and who, when he is in the country or when he is nearby, also spends his time studying or working, going from one place to the other. very good like that.”
Meanwhile Pareto, today away from judo, continues with her medical training. “A doctor never stops training”he says firmly. In that sense, he showed what his objectives are: “I would like to be a doctor for a National Team, be part of a medical body, the Olympic Committee or the Argentine National Team. I would like to be with the athletes, now from the other side. It would be a great dream to be able to travel with my athletes and represent the country from another function. My goal is not to move away from sports or medical, but to merge them, it is one of the great goals that I have in mind today”.
Paula Pareto, always smiling
COVER EDITION: MATÍAS DI JULIO
