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Tokyo 2020 | Pilar Jáuregui, ready for the Paralympic Games: “The goal is to always reach the podium, I’m going to give it my all” | Parabadminton | FULL-SPORTS

No one is prepared for their life to change from one moment to the next. Some pain when walking was the beginning of a 360 ° turn to Pilar Jáuregui, who at the age of 14 learned that he suffered from congenital bilateral hip dislocation.

Two years later the surgeries began and at 18 he had to stop walking and use a wheelchair. Depression came to affect her at the time, she thought that her dreams would collapse, and above all she believed that she would no longer play sports, she liked volleyball, surfing, basketball, tennis and badminton.

However, he was wrong, the wheelchair was no obstacle to chasing dreams and returning to the courts, he learned about adapted sports and found badminton again. In 2015, he tried parabadminton, trained for a few weeks and achieved a gold medal. He had felt the old thing again.

In 2018, she achieved three golds in the Pan American Parabadminton Championship and became the best para-athlete in the region. His career was promoted and the medals kept coming, as in Lima 2019, when it was the best in America.

And now she is close to fulfilling another dream, being a Paralympic. Pilar Jáuregui is part of the delegation of 11 para-athletes that will be at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games (from August 24 to September 5) and is already preparing for that historic moment: her debut in the highest event in the premiere of para-badminton as paralympic sport. She will compete in the WH2 (wheelchair) category and told testify how you prepare a few weeks before the event.

How do you live these moments with the Peruvian delegation in Tokyo?

I am living with great enthusiasm and excitement, although I should be resting after training, but it happened to me that Daniela (Macías) had to play at dawn and I woke up like that without an alarm to watch the game. also passed with Lucca (Messinas). Actually, we have been seeing almost all of the Peruvian participation. It is an emotion to see them participate and be there with the best.

It is not long before the Paralympic Games, do you see yourself at that moment?

Yes, in fact, in reality there is already a lot of illusion to be there. Now, I’m just training, because I still don’t know who I will play with, I know the rivals. I’m already imagining what my participation would be like there. I am calm without getting too upset, because in the end what I want is to concentrate.

Tell me, how was this process until qualifying for the Paralympic Games?

It has been a very tough process, for that reason, many of my colleagues have not been able to qualify, but we still do not lose hope, because the process is not yet closed. Everything was very hard [el proceso], we have started this race in 2019 in the ‘Road to Tokyo’, the sum of points, we have been in many tournaments competing. We have been to almost all the tournaments, because since parabadminton is their first time in a Paralympic Games, all the rivals have been there, in all the tournaments. Of the 14 tournaments that there are annually, 10 or 9 tournaments have been almost complete, it has been practically a World Cup. The process has been very hard, I believe that this illusion belongs to everyone, of wanting to be in the Paralympic Games and this has made the road difficult. Also the classification system was not so friendly, it was well fought. For example, in my category the classification was going through the doubles ranking, the six couples classified in doubles automatically went to the singles table, so now the singles table is going to be 9. I have tried to add the possible points So that the doubles players do not pass me, I finished in the 7th place in the ranking to Tokyo, it has been a very hard work and now I wait for the draw to know who I will play with.

What has it been like to return to activity after a major stoppage due to the pandemic?

Just last year the qualifying tournaments were about to end, it was already March and the only one missing was one in Spain and hours before they canceled the tournament due to the pandemic. We had already heard something about COVID, they were already closing some borders, I never thought of living a pandemic, many of us saw it in movies. I never imagined this was going to happen, so when it caught us, it caught us off guard, with no materials at home and we practically had to stop everything. I tried to adjust and train at home. During all this time, many of my rivals were training in the same way, and I was at home, I couldn’t sleep until we soon returned to La Videna, but a lot of training was lost. We tried to recover the rhythm, but it was not easy, it has cost us a lot, just this year there was a tournament in Dubai, but it did not give points for Tokyo 2020, I did not go to that one, but I did travel to Spain, because it was the last tournament that was resumed. When the Games were postponed, they gave us a new calendar and that’s how everything happened.

Pilar Jáuregui won the gold medal at the Parapan American Games. (Lima 2019)

You will be the only representative of para badminton, how are you preparing?

In this last month, we are going to do more tactical work and a sparring is just coming, thanks to IPD’s ‘Let’s go with Tokyo’ program, and we are going to have practice matches, because here in Peru I am one of those who play more badminton and like there is no rival. Therefore, they are doing everything possible to bring sparring and thus be able to train these last weeks, do many practice matches, match tactics, and to get into everything that is match.

Do you already know when you would debut in the Paralympic Games?

Yes, we already have that, I will be competing on September 1, I know that there are going to be three groups, because there are 9 of us, two would go through groups to the quarterfinals, I still don’t know who I am going to play with. The competition would end on the 5th, I will be traveling on August 24 when everything has already started.

Angelo Caro achieved a top 5 in the debut of skateboarding in the Olympic Games, does that motivate you to try to achieve the same or more in the premiere of parabadminton in Tokyo?

I’m going to give my all, always one when going to represent the country, I always try to be at the top, for now I can’t say, because everything depends on the painting, the painting is very complicated. There is going to be a raffle and there I will see what can be done. The first idea is to go through groups, to be among the top six.

I imagine that the big goal is to win a medal, no matter the color …

The goal is to always reach the podium, I am going to give it my all, obviously it happened by step. First we must complete the group stage, but the goal is to reach the podium.

Although the table is not defined yet, you already know your rivals, it is your same category. That’s good, there is nothing new …

Yes, almost all of us know each other, the Chinese must have some new strategy out there, but from there, we have all been on the same circuit competing. As soon as we have the rivals, we are going to start evaluating the games.

Do you also see yourself for Paris 2024 as a strong card in parabadminton or have you not thought about it yet?

Yes, I also have it very planned for Paris 2024. If you cannot get a medal now, I will go to Paris. It won’t be long actually, I was just thinking about it, what I want is a Paralympic medal, a medal in a World Cup, that’s my dream. If I don’t catch in Tokyo, the dream doesn’t end there, it’s less than three years until Paris. I’m actually working a lot and I know that little by little I’m going to get to the podium, and I do plan to go to Paris. I know that other countries have an advantage over me, they have been training for years and I just started in 2016, even though we have started late, I have tried to reach them. The rival countries are China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Turkey and Russia, and I have two Chinese and two Japanese, so it will be very difficult. I have already faced them, sometimes I have beaten them, sometimes not, but now we will see.

Will you open the door so that in the future there will be more modalities in the Olympic paradminton?

Yes, Giuliana Poveda, she is world champion in her category, there is also Pedro Pablo de Vinatea and Jesús Salva, they have their category and they have little lacking. They have all been there. Now that we have this experience, now we are all aiming for Paris 2024, but before we were aiming for Santiago 2023 and I know there are many more guys, because para-badminton has grown by leaps and bounds.

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