BarcelonaThere are dreams we sometimes don’t know we have. There are realities that, because they do not exist, we do not even think are possible. Aida has loved skating since she was a child. On four wheels he has overcome many obstacles, danced to the music and enjoyed with his companions. His hobby, however, was confined to training. She had no place in competitions. Down syndrome did not allow him to pass the exams to compete. Now, however, that is history.
“Since 1956, the Catalan Skating Federation has had a system of competition, of evolution of levels, archaic. The skaters had to do examinations and level tests to reach the different categories. Now what we have done is to create a new one. structure in which we have suppressed the trauma of having to be examined and now the coaches are in charge of putting their skaters at the appropriate level “, explains Montserrat Mata, head of the Barcelona Committee of the Federation. “It started at a higher level than Aida could have achieved. With the restructuring, they can now compete from four-year-olds who have just started to 44-year-olds, like a friend of mine. You can take part. everyone “, explains Lídia Vilardell, the coach of Aida, at which these new levels have allowed her to compete.
Aida getting on the podium in her first competition
The new structure has been implemented since mid-February and has been divided into ten amateur levels and one professional eleventh. Aida competed for the first time last weekend in the third tier. “The first time I told her I could compete she was speechless. She said, ‘Really?’ He immediately said yes, that he was signing up, “Lydia recalls excitedly. It was a new beginning, an open door to change, that Aida could take advantage of. She is the only skater with Down syndrome and being able to compete alongside the teammates she trains with every day was also an added bonus. “Because they’ve always seen him in training, they see it as normal. They haven’t seen it as something extraordinary. Aida is always there and competing was the most normal thing,” said the coach.
Although the naivete of the little ones sees it as the most normal thing in the world, and it is, for the Federation and for Aida this is a giant step. “I’m in a cloud,” says Aida. She had never left the Taradell pavilion, she had never seen other skaters, she had never experienced a competition. “She just did the end-of-year festivals,” Lydia recalls. Until the day came. “She had a lot of nerves and wanted to go out on the track. She was first and last, she was competing alone. But for her the prize was the opportunity,” said the coach. On the podium, in the first step, he was opening and closing his eyes tightly, as if trying to remember every moment, as if he wanted to ratify that this was really happening. The dream that even Aida did not know could be fulfilled has also come true and has opened a new door to inclusion in the world of sport.
