The Spanish dumbbell Loida Zabala fulfilled his dream this Thursday participate in the 2024 Paris Paralympic Gamesthe fifth in her list of achievements. She has attended them after being diagnosed at the end of last year with a serious terminal illness, which is why she could not hold back her tears while competing.
The Extremadura native finished ninth in the 50-kilogram event, but for her it was already one of the successes of her life. It is the great reward for a long journey that began when she found out she was suffering from an aggressive cancer, with nine masses in the brain After days earlier, his arm suddenly fell asleep, he began to lose his speech and was unable to recognize objects.
Two weeks later, she confirmed that she had lung cancer, a malignant neoplasm that had spread to her brain, liver and kidneys, but from that moment on she did not want that to stop her from her dream of being in her fifth Paralympic Games. He started a treatment with pills that worked and that made the masses in the brain disappear and that reduced the tumors in the lung and liver.
On July 12, she excitedly confirmed that she had won the ticket to be at the event and this Thursday, at La Chapelle Arena, was able to competealthough his participation was suspended due to the difficulty and exhaustion in losing weight.
“It was almost impossible for me to go in the state I was in, but we finally managed to lose weight, which cost me many days in the sauna and also I have done three valid ones that I had never done before in any international competition.“, Zabala celebrated excitedly in the mixed zone after lifting 60, 70 and 75 kilos in her three attempts.
The Extremadura native stressed that it had been “very complicated because in the end if the doctors tell you that you can’t compete, you can’t compete and you even have to accept it.”Of course, with everything we have done, it has been very complicated.“In January I weighed 61 kilos, going down to 50, being in the sauna for so long with the doctor there, with the blood pressure monitor, all the effort we’ve made, to be on the verge of recovery, was like devastating news for me,” she confessed.
“It has cost me a lot to get here, it has been many months of sacrifice, but when they finally gave me the news that I could compete, it was as if they told me again that I had qualified,” she added, making it clear that despite what she is going through, she does not consider herself “an inspiration.”I know that the inner strength that can be seen in me now is something that anyone can have.“I didn’t know I was that strong and I know that everyone has that inside,” he said.
“Being here talking to you (the media) seems incredible to me. Life sometimes gives you surprises and If I had given up and thrown in the towel, I wouldn’t be living right now.“, he commented.
“And on top of that, seeing your family is something incredible that I’ve never experienced before,” continued the Spaniard, who was watched from the stands at La Chapelle Arena by her mother, brother, partner and friends and who, despite a few exhausting months, doesn’t seem like she’s going to take too much of a break because she already has “one next focus on defending her European title, which is in two years.”It gives me time to get back to the form I was in last year. And then I would like to survive until Los Angeles 2028,” he warned.
Loida couldn’t hold back her tears at the Games: “I find it incredible, I’m so excited, It’s the first time I’ve cried at the entrance, what nonsense, But it was so exciting because my family was standing there in red shirts.”
In doubt until the last minute
Her coach, Oscar Sanchez, acknowledged how difficult it had been to get the athlete to her weight for the competition. “Yesterday Wednesday she was in quite bad health and We didn’t know if I would be able to compete.but she was able to, it was the dream she had to compete again in her fifth Games,” he stressed.
The coach was not clear “how much strength the Extremaduran was going to have” “after everything” they had to make the weight and then in the competition they started “little by little, very gently to at least do a valid lift and be in the competition”.
Sanchez does not forget the first moments when the weightlifter received the news of her “very, very serious illness.” “I remember when I was in the hospital I was just obsessed and All I was thinking about was when I could train again.“That really impacts you, it says a lot about what this means to her,” he said.
“I don’t know how far he will be able to go, that will be decided by the body because these things cannot be known, but She will train until the endwill fight and continue competing,” he concluded.
