There will be twenty-two sports on the program of the Paris Paralympics, from August 28 to September 9. Athletics, badminton, bowls, five-a-side football, rowing, road and track cycling, equestrianism, goalball, judo, swimming, basketball, canoeing, triathlon, weightlifting, rugby, fencing, sitting volleyball, taekwondo, tennis, shooting, archery.
Of these, goalball, judo and B1 five-a-side football are dedicated to people with visual impairments, while athletics, cycling, triathlon and rowing include competitions with crews made up of people with various disabilities.
Blind baseball and fencing, on the other hand, are not yet present at the Paralympics: the two sports, created in Italy, have been building a path for years to take part.
The first was born in Bologna, from the idea of two former Fortitudo Baseball players, Alfredo Meli and Umberto Calzolari. Marco Corazza, coach of the Roma All Blinds team, says that the two, having met some students from the Cavazza Institute for the Blind in Bologna, took two of them onto the field to try out the game. At the end of the test, one of them grabbed Meli by the shoulders and said to him “Do you realize that for the first time in my life I ran?”.
So Meli and Calzolari went on, with various tests and small changes, until the first official match in 1994, when there were only two teams. Today, the championship has eleven and in September the Italian Cup will also be played.
An almost casual experiment by Master Giancarlo Puglisi, in 2010 in Modica, gave rise to the practice of fencing for the blind.
While performing an exercise with his eyes closed, to improve sensory perceptions, a student suggested involving a friend with visual impairment. Word of mouth increased the presence of blind or partially sighted people at the trial lessons. Over the years, together, athletes and teacher, developed the rules of the sport. Currently, there are 23 fencing clubs in Italy that offer the possibility of practicing it, and about 50 athletes.
The weapon of visually impaired athletes is the sword, but unlike the Olympic sword, which does not have a convention, it is necessary to parry, to hit the opponent’s blade, for the point to be valid. A thin metal line, which works as a guide, is placed on the platform, so that the athletes can concentrate only on the action. The electronic device that marks the points emits two different sounds depending on who hits the opponent, so that the fencers on the platform immediately understand who has touched, but also to ensure that any person with visual impairment can follow the attack.
For baseball, “the goal is to participate in the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles,” says Corazza, who is also manager of the national team and a member of a technical committee that has been working to spread the sport abroad over the past four Olympic years. The sport is currently present in Cuba, the United States, Pakistan, China, Great Britain, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
The first European Championship was held in Bologna in 2023. “Seeing teams from all over Europe running on the pitch and then hugging each other at the end of the match,” says Corazza, “was very exciting.”
Roberto Remoli, fencer and president of the Roma 2000 association, which deals with the practice and promotion of sport for the visually impaired, says that, thanks to the Erasmus + Sport program, since 2018 France, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, together with Italy, have attempted to structure the discipline and establish a common regulation to create an international circuit.
But to enter the Paralympic program, the sporting activity must be practiced on all continents. “Blind sports have grown a lot,” says Remoli, “perhaps even some unthinkable sports, there is even sport climbing, horse riding, cycling.”
Since 2003, with the creation of the Italian Paralympic Committee, equivalent to Coni, but also with the intuition of some federations, such as the Italian Fencing Federation, to welcome blind athletes, with motor, intellectual and relational disabilities and include them in competitive activities.
“When you play sports with a disability,” says Corazza, “in addition to the technical aspect, there is a large psychological component, finding yourself faced with many different situations.” Martina Pasquali, player of the Roma All Blinds team, also speaks about the psychological dimension. She chose baseball for “the feeling of freedom in moving and moving around the field, which also gives you security in real life.”
Blind baseball, as told by those who teach and play it, is a complete sport, which allows athletes to run, jump, throw and catch a ball that contains rattles. The game helps develop various skills, including that of concentrating and isolating certain sounds, so as not to be distracted by others.
Pasquali, who is visually impaired, says she is independent in everyday life, but in baseball, as in fencing, the players are all blindfolded. “Being independent even in the dark,” Pasquali continues, “in an unusual situation, restores trust in the reality that surrounds you.”
Yet, autonomy is not a given. Silvia Tombolini, fencer and Italian champion in 2024, who dreams of bringing blind fencing to Los Angeles, and of being part of the Italian team, talks about the difficulties and barriers that a person with visual impairment must face to access the sport. Sometimes the presence of a companion is necessary, increasing costs. “Institutions must invest in urban solutions, and trade associations could offer accompaniment services, or find methods to facilitate everyday life, in which sport must be included”, concludes Tombolini.
“Making the context welcoming for those who cannot see means making it welcoming for everyone,” Pasquali emphasizes. And in describing baseball, the athlete says, “to score a point, the team pushes you, you hit and run, you get to second, the player after you has to hit and get you to third and then to home plate.” The athletes are not all at the same competitive level, but by putting together the different characteristics, “those who hit well, those who run well, those who can feel the ball even if they throw it so low that you can’t hear it, each one gives their part and helps the team to move as a single organism.”
As in a team game, therefore, rethinking together the sports and urban spaces so that we can have a sport that is “free and open to all” as Remoli hopes “without having to struggle to find a facility that accepts us, and that does not have physical or sensorial architectural barriers”, in Italy and in the rest of the world, up to Los Angeles
2024-07-26 23:15:47
#Blind #Baseball #Fencing #Dreaming #Los #Angeles
