Presentation of the team. Photo: DGA.
Ehe Minister of Education, Culture and Sports, Felipe Faci, and the Secretary General of the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE), Miguel Sagarra, presented this Thursday the Aragonese team shortlisted to participate in the Tokyo 2021 Paralympic Games, which are held in the Japanese capital between August 24 and September 5.
They are eight athletes with great experience and extensive track records, and who are benchmarks in different disciplines: swimming (María Delgado Nadal, Teresa Perales Fernández and Adrián Longarón Carreras), judo (Sergio Ibáñez Bañón), athletics (Winsdom Ikhiuwu Smith and Diego Sancho Villanueva), cycling (Eduardo Santas Asensio) and table tennis (Jorge Cardona Márquez).
Although their presence in the largest international sports competition is not yet guaranteed (from the list of 250 people pre-selected by the Spanish State, the final list to attend the Games will come out, which will be made up of about 115 athletes and will become official in the first fortnight of July), the counselor wanted to congratulate them for all their deeds and efforts, and has been convinced that they will get the pass to go to Tokyo.
Teresa Perales, the most awarded athlete in history in Spain and less than 24 hours ago, was awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Sports. Perales, present at the event along with fellow swimmers María Delgado and Adrián Longarón, said she felt prepared for the event, despite dragging an injury from the last competition in which she participated.
These games will bring together 4,400 athletes from at least 160 states. According to the data he has shared, in 12 days of competition, 540 events with medals -272 men, 228 women and 40 mixed- will be held in 21 venues spread across the Japanese capital of the 22 sports that are part of the competition program (athletics , wheelchair basketball, boccia, cycling, wheelchair fencing, football-5, goalball, judo, weightlifting, horse riding, swimming, canoeing, rowing, wheelchair rugby, table tennis, wheelchair tennis , archery, olympic shooting, triathlon and sitting volleyball, plus the premiere in badminton and taekwondo games).
Teresa Perales, swimming
Teresa Perales is the athlete in Spain with the highest number of medals in the Games, with a total of 26 (7 gold, 9 silver and 10 bronze), obtained in the last five Paralympic editions (Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016).
The Zaragoza swimmer, who has used a wheelchair since she was 19 years old after suffering an illness, made her international debut in swimming in 1998, during the New Zealand World Championships. Since then, he has accumulated more than 80 medals in the top competitions in this sport.
Maria Delgado, swimming
María Delgado started swimming when she was 10 years old. In 2013, with only 15, she got a fourth place in the Montreal World Cup (Canada), being the youngest athlete in the Spanish State expedition.
As for her Paralympic record, the visually impaired athlete achieved two bronzes in Rio 2016, in the 50 free meters and in the 100 backstroke. Since then, he has not gotten off the main international podiums: he won two medals in the 2017 World Cup in Mexico and another in London in 2019, as well as seven other medals in the last two Europeans (Dublin and Madeira).
Sergio Ibáñez, judo
The judoka is a member of the Judo Club Zaragoza. One of his greatest achievements is to ensure that, for the first time in the history of judo in the Spanish state, an athlete with diversity or visual impairment hangs a medal in the 2018 absolute Spanish State Championship against rivals without disabilities or diversity. It was his first participation in this competition, and he got a silver medal in the -60 kilos category.
At the 2020 State Championship, organized in Madrid by the Royal Spanish Judo Federation, Sergio Ibáñez shone again with a bronze medal. The Aragonese judoka, who now competes in less than 66 kilos, was the member of the Spanish Sports Federation for the Blind who went the furthest. Ibáñez also adds a second place in an IBSA Judo World Cup and another silver and bronze in European Championships.
Jorge Cardona Márquez, table tennis
He has participated in three Paralympic Games and has been on the podium on all three occasions. In 2008, in Beijing, he won silver in the 9-10 class team competition. In the same category, he finished third at London 2012 and second at the Rio 2016 Games.
He has also collected team medals in the last World Cups (Korea 2010, Beijing 2014 and Bratislava 2017), in addition to other distinctions in the Europeans of this sport. Jorge was born with a foot problem and has been in his sport since he was three years old.
Winsdom Ikhiuwu Smith, athletics
Winsdom Ikhiuwu is a member of the Liberty Insurance Team of Paralympic Promises in Athletics. The athlete broke the Spanish state record of 60 meters in the T13 category, with a mark of 7 ”35, during the Aragon Under 20 Indoor Championships, held in Zaragoza last February, in which he achieved third position.
Between June 1 and 5, he is contesting the European Paralympic Athletics Championships in Poland to accredit the minimum mark that allows him to debut in the Paralympic Games.
Eduardo Santas Asensio, cycling
Eduardo Santas, who suffers from hemiplegia on the right side of the body, has a brilliant career: he participated in the Paralympic Games in Rio 2016 where he won the bronze medal in the team speed event, along with Alfonso Cabello and Amador Granados, being also the first metal in the history of the Spanish State in this test in some Games. He also obtained two diplomas in the individual pursuit and track kilometer tests.
In addition, in recent years he has been a 16-time World Cup medalist (one gold, five silver and eight bronzes on the track and another two bronzes on the road).
Adrián Longarón Carreras, swimming
Longarón became in 2019 the youngest person in the Spanish State to attend a Swimming World Cup for athletes with disabilities or intellectual diversity in Brisbane, Australia. In the European Paralympic Swimming Championships held this 2021 in Madeira, the Aragonese swimmer from CD Aragua achieved two gold medals in the 4×100 freestyle and 4×100 S14 relays, teaming up with Javier Labrador, Michelle Alonso and Eva Coronado.
In March of this year, in the Absolute Championship for Autonomous Selections, Adrián achieved three records of the Spanish State in his three tests: 58”71 in 100 free meters, 27”79 in 50 butterfly and 27”07 in 50 free .
In 2018 he was the only representative of Aragon in the FEDDI Championship of regional teams, held in San Fernando (Cádiz). Adrián grabbed up to four metals and placed Aragon in sixth place in the men’s medal table.
Diego Sancho Villanueva, athletics
The athlete with disabilities or visual diversity, who has numerous medals in Spanish state championships, achieved an important triumph in the World Athletics Championships that took place in 2015 in Doha, Qatar, where he won bronze in the 4×100 meters in categories T11-T13.
In addition, the athlete from Zaragoza was proclaimed runner-up in Europe in Berlin 2018 in the 400 meters T13 after a great fight with the Ukrainian Serhii Bereziuk, who was finally bronze. This was his first individual continental medal, as in Swansea (Wales) 2014 he won a bronze in the 40×100 meter relay.
