Ibon Oregi (Markina, 1977) felt death on October 1, 2020. After the first summer of covid he returned to training. He was preparing another Ironman; Triathlon was his passion. While he was running, a car hit him on the N-634 that connects Zumaia – where he has his residence – and Getaria, and in seconds “I found myself in the air.” He found that “I was missing half a leg.” After rehabilitation he took refuge in his other hobby, surfing, “my therapy.” Three years later he boasts of being a double champion of Spain and silver in the last World Cup and European Championships.
Anger has been with him ever since. «It’s something you will never understand. Why was she in that place, at that moment. “These are circumstances that I have not chosen,” recalls the Biscayan of that morning when he was going to surf with a friend, but the sea did not advise it. So he decided to go for a run before going to the institute where he worked as a Physical Education teacher. After the accident he underwent an operation that amputated his left leg from the knee down and has not returned to teaching. “They forced me to retire,” he says, but he maintains contact with hundreds of students every year when he gives talks on ‘Bizitzaren baloreak, Aparretan bizi (The values of life, living in the foam)’, where he reflects and invites them to think about the inclusion in sport.
Oregi shared his experience last Friday at the forum ‘Weaving networks for inclusion through Physical Activity and Sports’, organized by the GaituzSport Foundation, which works with the aim of promoting the practice of sports by people with disabilities. It took place in the Iberdrola Tower and included the participation of other athletes, such as the chair basketball player in the Bilbao club Bidaideak and Paralympic medalist, Asier García, and the world champion in athletics for people with Down Syndrome, Mikel García. , from the Basauritarra club Ascensores Bertako Javi Conde. Representatives of the Basque Government, Bizkaia Provincial Council and Bilbao City Council also participated; in addition to Gorabide, an association whose purpose is to care for people with Intellectual Disabilities, and Kait, the Basque Association of Sports Managers.
At the GaituzSport conference on sport and inclusion Mireya López
“I just thought that I didn’t want to die yet,” he remembers about the Oregi operation, which saw how “where the tibia and fibula were, there was nothing.” “I’m missing half a leg but I’ve learned other things,” says the man from Lea-Artibai, who in his first rehabilitation session got on a stationary bike for fifteen minutes when he was only allowed five. “As they didn’t realize… It was my moment of glory, sport has always given me life, I don’t understand it without it.”
“We still have a long way to go before our society is inclusive, I see that in schools it is not so easy”
As the months passed and as she regained mobility, she bought a leg, but the prosthesis causes a lot of pain in her hip, so the idea of doing triathlons again has been put on hold. “I have learned to live without running, it doesn’t compensate me.” That is why she has bought an electric bicycle to continue enjoying with her crew. «I cheat a little by having an engine, but that’s what inclusion is about. If you feel like one more, stay there.
“I needed to be in the water”
Oregi’s words are messages of life. Since she couldn’t run, she focused on what was her other hobby, “my therapy.” The Markinarra did not abandon the sea, the feeling of freedom that catching a wave gives him. “He needed to be in the water, with my friends in nature.” His refusal to surrender has made him in the last two years a double national champion and runner-up in the world and Europe in the kneel category, that is, on his knees. In those tournaments “around me I had blind people, people in wheelchairs, people with cerebral palsy… I couldn’t imagine the people who could be there and how they enjoyed it,” he says with a smile on his face.
Even though “my friends have always pushed me hard,” he feels that there is still a lot to do. «We still have a long way to go before our society is inclusive. I see that in schools it is not so easy, you have to work a lot,” he says, confident that his testimony will help change the chip of those who have the pleasure of listening to him.
2023-11-27 23:57:02
#accident #thought #dying #surfing #therapy
