Ruth Aguilar does not stop laughing during the talk even though some memories are very hard. “I am what I am thanks to the blows of life, but each blow has made me stronger,” says this Valencian, Paralympic athlete, manager in Paralympic and inclusive sports and mother of three children. With a professional hyperactivity that has led her to receive numerous awards, recognitions and the support of universities and entities that believe in the work she does as president of the Unlimited Wheels club and the Activate Sports association.
“Sport has been my best medicine,” he points out. To understand this phrase we must remember Ruth’s life. Being a teenager, she was an elite handball player in the children’s and youth categories. But in 1992, at the age of seventeen, she suffered a traffic accident and as a consequence suffered a spinal cord injury that left her in a wheelchair for life. “Something like that, being so young, breaks you in half; “But I was very lucky, I survived and destiny offered me another opportunity that I channeled through sport.” ”The first year after the accident I started a new life, it’s as if I had the practice L in a car,” she adds.
Remember that he wanted to return to sports, he really wanted to. “They told me about an adapted basketball team, the Valencia Rangers, who trained in Xirivella; and so little by little I was trying this and all types of Paralympic sports.” In addition to basketball he practiced swimming. “And one day they told me to try Paralympic weightlifting, I tried it and since I’m strong, I liked it and I dedicated seven years of my life professionally to it.”
Then came athletics with discus, shot put and javelin. With weightlifting she was preselected twice for the Paralympic Games, and she managed to reach that appointment in London 2012: “I came 11th in the world, I almost got the diploma; but I achieved the Spanish record.” “I will never forget being in front of 10,000 people in that Olympic stadium in my life.”
After his sporting career “a before and after comes, and you ask yourself what you can do.” It was then that he decided to manage and organize activities for Paralympic and inclusive sport. “I wanted to give back to society everything I had learned about sport and people with disabilities and their environment, to help people of all ages find goals that have helped me a lot to face life with optimism.”
She recognizes that combining this passion with being a mother “was not easy, but I had to do it.” One of these facets is that of lecturers, of coach, to disseminate all the possibilities that Paralympic sport offers: “I’m still in love with life, I’m still fighting, I’m still dreaming.”
But great success has come to her with the activities she carries out as president of the Unlimited Wheels club and the Activate Sports association. “We have sponsors, the Polytechnic University of Valencia also gives us its support and in a few years more than 150 athletes have joined the inclusive sports project.” The main activity is cycling, a sport that Ruth also tried and that, she says, “gives you a lot of freedom when you practice it.” This Valencian woman highlights that society has not yet fully opened up to sports for people with disabilities. She gives the case of beaches as an example: “In some there are fences to delimit areas in areas for people with disabilities and that is a mistake; off fences, all together.”
Another issue is that of being a woman and disabled, an issue that Ruth refers to by pointing out that “being a woman in the world of sport already presents challenges, but being a woman with a disability who wants to compete and advance in sport adds additional layers of difficulty. There are few of us in this field, and social and economic barriers often cause many to give up along the way.” “In addition to training, many of us have to deal with regular doctor visits, physical therapy sessions and other specific health needs. This often involves having to carefully organize our schedules and commitments,” she adds.
It tells one more thing, but with the same strength. Not long ago he was diagnosed with colon cancer. “It is another blow, another test, but I continue forward and with the same enthusiasm, and I continue winning battles and achieving goals.” This is Ruth Aguilar.
