Known as Daughter of the Wind, Ádria Santos, the greatest female medalist in the country, brings together impressive feats. Four-time Paralympic champion, she has won 73 medals in international competitions and another 583 in national competitions, over a 27-year sports career. Among these achievements are the 13 medals in six Paralympic Games: Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing. In an exclusive interview for Agência Brasil, the 48-year-old athlete talks about her distinguished career in sport and perspectives for the future, in homage to International Women’s Day, celebrated this Wednesday (8). Ádria Santos at the Beijing Paralympics, 2008 Personal archive/rights reserved Ádria was born in Nanuque, in the interior of Minas Gerais, in August 1974, with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease, and became completely blind at the age of 18 – when he had moved with his family to Belo Horizonte. The athlete even underwent a corneal transplant to alleviate severe pain in her eyes, but she could not see again. Blindness, however, was not an obstacle. Helped by a runner called “guide”, it remains active until today. Without sponsorship at the beginning of her career, Ádria looked for other means to stay in the sport and support her daughter. “A person with a disability always encounters many challenges. For people who have the ability to bring results [nos esportes] like I had when I started, there was no sponsorship of any kind. Paralympic sport was not publicized as it is today. When I started there was this difficulty of having material [de corrida] suitable, for example”, she says. In Ádria’s words, the peak of her career was the Sydney Paralympics, in 2000. On the occasion, she won two gold medals, in the 100 meters (m) and 200 meters. guaranteed the sprinter a record for 11 years. “At fourteen I made my first participation in the Paralympic Games, already returning with two silver medals from Barcelona”, he recalls. “But in Sydney was my best moment. I was very well physically and mentally very, very worked. Confidence at the time of the test was very important at a moment that I consider historic for me”, he says. Overcoming Athlete competes in the Sydney Paralympics, in 2000- Personal archive/rights reserved For Ádria, her biggest challenge was leaving her career. Retirement arrived two years after a knee injury in 2012, which left her out of the London Paralympics. She says she went into depression and even locked all her medals and awards in a room so she couldn’t see them. I didn’t even want to see my achievements, that for me was like it was over. Then came the moment I realized I needed help. It was a really bad time I went through. This feeling is very common with high-performance athletes, because we live intensely, it’s a lot of adrenaline. My life was just training, training, training. It was from Monday to Saturday, I trained in the morning, in the afternoon and I was always very focused, very determined. I always set myself goals. I lived like that for many years, when I entered a track I had that feeling of doing my best, always respecting my opponents. So, when I found myself outside, it was very difficult”, he says. Running came back to Ádria’s life to rescue her from suffering, but instead of running tracks in stadiums, the stage was the streets. hall, pole dancing, pilates and even paracycling, in 2018. “I started running [de rua], run five kilometers and set some goals and so I started to participate in competitions again. People recognized me, greeted me: ‘how nice of you to be here’. But they didn’t know I needed help, but they ended up helping me get over it. There was a time when I couldn’t even get on the athletics track, it made me feel anxious and panicky,” he adds. In Brazil, during the 2007 Pan American Games – Personal archive/rights reserved Dedication Currently, the athlete runs the Instituto Ádria Santos, which offers free athletics classes for children aged 6 to 12, with or without disabilities, in Joinville, Santa Catarina. With her life story, Ádria seeks to encourage young people to dedicate themselves to sport. “I always try to show not my disability, but but the ability I have to do something I like. Athletics is my passion. When I’m running, the feeling is of freedom and, for me, that’s wonderful”, says the athlete. According to Ádria, showing the importance of inclusion in the formation of the little ones: “by playing they learn the techniques of athletics and living with the child who has a disability or even with me is very important. They will see how natural it is to play with me, show things to me from something they are seeing”, he describes. “I say that this project is another trophy for me. It’s the most important trophy, because it’s what I’m living today”, she adds. She says that she encourages the children assisted by the project to find a sport that they really like to dedicate to, but without forgetting that not all of them will be record holders or medalists. “That’s what I tell my children: first, we have to like the modality, have courage. When we do something we like, the result comes – being an athlete or not. We know that many people practice, but few succeed reach an Olympics or Paralympics. I say they have to do their best, because the biggest medal and the one we can win in everything is what we do with love”, she concludes.
Agência Brasil
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