For more than twenty years, Manuela Díaz’s body has been her work tool, her means of expression and her life. With it he has flown on the courts, he has won two absolute Spanish championships and he has shared international calls with the world’s badminton elite. However, the high performance bill has arrived suddenly. At 34 years old, the founder of the Sierra Morena Club and national badminton leader is not fighting for a medal today, but for something much more basic: being able to tie her shoelaces without pain.
And the current reality of the athlete from Arjonilla, who has lived in Córdoba for years, is far from the image of strength that she always projected on the court. Manuela has been living for four years with two severe herniated discs that have led to canal stenosis and nerve involvement. A diagnosis that has transformed his routine into a silent ordeal. “The pain is constant. I can’t flex my spine and you don’t know the amount of activities that this gesture involves: from making the bed or putting on a washing machine, to playing with my nephews,” says the protagonist herself.
