Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 07:46
Not everyone can find the strength and inspiration to recover from the blows that life deals. <a href="https://www.archysport.com/2022/07/caixabank-and-the-spanish-paralympic-committee-renew-their-agreement-for-paris-2024/" title="CaixaBank and the Spanish Paralympic Committee renew their agreement for Paris 2024“>Loida Zabala (Extremadura, 1987) is an example of self-improvement from a very young age. Transverse myelitis left her confined to a hospital bed for several months. His legs stopped responding when he was 11 years old and the wheelchair taught him the word “freedom.” The motivation of the London 2012 Games helped her overcome mistreatment by an ex-boyfriend, and focusing on Paris 2024, her last participation in the Paralympics, reinforced her in her fight against metastatic lung cancer and up to nine brain tumors that were diagnosed a year ago.
Her figure is inspiring even if she refuses to accept it. «I have learned more to live each moment as if it were the last. Despite taking care of yourself, cancer is a lottery that you can win. I hope to make it to the Los Angeles 2028 Games alive,” said the Extremaduran weightlifter in the first edition of the Positive Sports Congress organized by As, in the presentation ‘Champions against adversity’. The woman from Cáceres from Losar de la Vera, 19 times Spanish champion, competed in her fifth Paralympic Games this summer after receiving the worst of the diagnoses after being seventh in Beijing 2008, fifth in London 2012, fifth in Rio 2016 and sixth in Tokyo 2020. Through the Loida Zabala Foundation, for years she has encouraged more people to join the sport that serves as a lighthouse among the darkness that looms over her.
The 37-year-old athlete highlighted during her emotional speech the criticism she had to overcome and the tough sauna sessions to make weight at the Paris Games despite the medication. The path since then, in these months, has not been easy due to the illness. «I had comments that told me that I was never going to win a national gold medal, that I would never go to the Paralympic Games, that I would never lift more than 80 kilos, and in the end I managed to do it all. Paris has been very difficult, I gained up to 11 kilos with the medication and I had to lose to 50, I achieved the position after spending several days in a sauna to lose weight and that brought me health problems. They were the ones in the worst position but the ones I enjoyed the most and I also cried with emotion during the presentation. “I couldn’t be more grateful for life.”
The Paralympic weightlifter, who carries optimism as her flag, is independent and strong, not only because of the almost one hundred kilos she is capable of lifting in powerlifting. Nothing scares him. “Getting to Paris alive is already a medal for me,” she said a few weeks ago. «Sport is essential to see the solutions and bring me closer to the dreams to fulfill. It has gotten me out of situations where I hit rock bottom. We all have that strength within, even if we don’t know it,” he reflected.
