Fifteen
Valentina, even if she no longer sees the finish line, runs as fast as Mennea. Massimiliano, while blindfolded, aims perfectly in archery. Pasquale can no longer distinguish colors, but he can still imagine how shiny the gold is that he holds in his hands after a baseball game. The sporting world of the blind or partially sighted in Bologna is full of sensational successes, but also of many very normal stories, where the victory was to start again, to regain one’s autonomy with one’s eyes closed: getting dressed, tying one’s shoes alone. Bringing the fork to the palate, thanks to a sense of direction that sport can provide. But it wasn’t always like this. For a long time, moving around with a visual impairment was inaccessible, due to social prejudice, such as the law on the subject which, until the 1970s, even provided for exemption from school sports hours for the blind. Then the slow change, for which the city of the Two Towers was the base and laboratory, and which also arrived thanks to the commitment of professionals who dedicated their lives to this mission.
Melissa Melandri, president of the regional Paralympic Committee, is among these. She has seen this world change and fought for its renewal. Young and before the letter football referee, since 1979 she has been active in the campaign for inclusion. An effort she pursued together with the National Union of the Blind and the Francesco Cavazza Institute in via Castiglione, which led her to become technical commissioner of the national Goalball team: the almost twin discipline of football adapted for those with visual disabilities. «Before I started practicing it, every boy I knew was completely different, not only in his skills, but in his desire to do things. Feeling the challenge with themselves, however, was possible, it made them and the world around them more capable, starting with their families.” A change of pace accepted by sports clubs, which from the early 2000s began to provide accessible alternatives to those with disabilities who wanted to practice sports. There are now hundreds of blind athletes in the region, whether amateur or competitive, and each of these, from the youngest to the most mature, has – especially in Bologna – a wide range of choices: from the most common category sports such as goalball and torball , baseball, tennis, horse riding, athletics, judo, climbing. There is a characteristic however, according to Melissa, which distinguishes the practice of sport for the blind from others who practice it: «Whereas usually, those without disabilities start when they are children or in adolescence and gradually abandon it. Here it is the opposite: a blind person who encounters sport never leaves it. He does it all his life.”
Pasquale di Flaviano, 70 years old, is one of these: «this year I celebrate 50 years as a blind person». That’s what he calls this story. The last thing he saw clearly, as a child, was the soccer ball outside the institute where he was about to be operated on. When he woke up, the darkness, more and more. «Every time they say that our life is the same as that of a sighted person, they are lying. There are difficulties, but we can get back up. I did theatre, I threw out my pathology. But it was sport that freed me, that gave me strength.” On the way to and from home you orient yourself by the scent of the bars, the noise of the dry cleaners. On the baseball field, however, he has studied his points of reference: one of the bases towards which he must run is sound and the team is supported by a sighted player. Here he is not a “good-willer” guy: “I play to win”, he says. He trains three afternoons a week in the Casteldebole factory, while every Sunday he travels to the Italian championships. The first Europeans, however, took place in his Bologna last October: a success for all his companions, girls and boys, women and men ranging from 13 to 63 years old. «With them, we never talk about blindness. But to win, we cheer each other on. Baseball forces you to know things about yourself and your body, to understand. Increases inner strength. I won’t give up on him.” Massimiliano Piombo, 50 years old, physiotherapist at Sant’Orsola, lost his sight at the age of 20, while he was skiing in the mountains with Alberto Tomba, and had reached very high peaks, even prestigious ones. But due to retinitis, which progressively worsened, he retired. «At the beginning I had a huge social hole – he says – It was an uninformed society. I thought I had to throw away my passion.” Then something happened that changed the perspective. «Near my house there was archery and I tried, blindfolded. Incredible, but I hit the mark.” Thanks to a tactile viewfinder, he took aim. And he became increasingly better, until he won the Paralympic world championships in the discipline in 2009. Now, never satisfied with experimenting, he is preparing for those in Los Angeles, but in the equestrian category. «It is important to let those with disabilities know that being an athlete is possible. I wish someone would have revealed this to me when my illness began. I would have been braver.”
Valentina Petrillo, a trans programmer and athlete, who is preparing for the Paris games, was also courageous. When you arrived here in Bologna, in 1994, at the dawn of the syndrome Stargardt, she was scared, “I would see less and less and blurry, I was so young.” But it was precisely athletics, discovered here, that gave her a new direction. «Before every running race I go to the finish line. The point I see at the end is the one I have to get to, and I have carried this habit of looking for my fixed points throughout my life.” Since 2019 she has completed her transition journey, and now she can fulfill her desire to run with the pink jersey of the national team, but this is still a dream with obstacles: «I can only run as a trans at the Paralympics. The sporting world of “normals” is much less inclusive. I can’t wish another trans athlete like me to go blind to run in the women’s category. And would the world of the blind be full of barriers?”.
Pasquale Di Flaviano playing blind baseball. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
The article was published in issue 11 of “Fifteen” on 16 November 2023
2023-11-22 15:34:05
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