Christmas Eve 2012, Toni Burrueco (37 years old) went to play a soccer game with his friends. There were no seatbelts in the back of the car they were in, they had a accident and Burrueco flew through the air splitting the marrow.
After the accident, and already in his new life with reduced mobility, Burrueco, always linked to sport, tried the balloon in a wheelchair in Institut Guttman, but at that time he did not find the motivation to continue. Yes, it did in 2015, when from the CEM L’Hospitaletthe senior club of Spanish adapted basketballthey called him to rearm the team.
Burrueco is one of the visible faces of the wheelchair basketball club in Hospitalet de Llobregat, entity in which the origins of this Paralympic sport are found at the national level, especially in female category. Along with him, the players Sergio Hernandez and Biel Llopis They have also shared their life story with El Periódico de Catalunya, a newspaper belonging to the same group, Prensa Ibérica, as this newspaper.
“Here we have found our place”, emphasize the players in unison. In addition to motivation, all agree on the inclusive effect of sport in their lives: “Thanks to basketball, our environment sees the possibilities we have as People with disabilities”.
Beyond the accidents
as described Roger Gisbert, current player of the club and son of its founder, Ramon Gisbertthe most common profile of players is that of people with supervening physical disabilities, not from birth. Many of them caused by accidentsalthough there are also frequent cases of disease sequelae. Sergio Hernandez (37 years old) is one of those cases: “I had leukemia y it went wrong because the marrow rejected my legs and my body was left paralyzed from the waist down”. The first thing, he says, was to cure the disease: although he is now in a wheelchair, he managed to get back on his feet, not without fatigue or discomfort. The second, to reactivate himself.
“I didn’t want to be 30 years old as if I were a grandfather. No, man, no: that can’t be.” Adapted basketball, he says, has allowed him to have fun, stay active and foster fellowship.
“I have matured through basketball”
The case of the young Biel Llopis (24 years) is especially paradigmatic. At 15 years old he was not well and he made wrong decisions that led to a suicide attempt that left him without part of his legs, bill.
“I had a complicated life; sports in general, and basketball in particular, have helped me a lot to move forward, to mature and escape from my problems“, points out Llopis, who points out that basketball “is no longer just a sport, but goes much further than the ball: here I have friends“.
Apart from basketball, Llopis has also found a vital outlet in rap. Since three years ago write songs and tries to gain a foothold in the world of music because dedicating himself to it, he stresses, is his dream.
