Teresa Perales, debut in another Games with the challenge of continuing to climb Olympus

They are the seventh Paralympic Games behind them, but they are not just another. Teresa Peralesone of the greatest legends of Spanish sport, will debut this Thursday at Paris 2024 with one goal between the eyebrows: to stay on the podium after one of its most complicated cycles.

Much has been said about 27 medals and the comparison with Michael Phelps’ 28. This is a good incentive for the Spaniard, who has seven gold, ten silver and ten bronze medals on his record. These are legendary numbers for Perales in his sport, although in the Paralympic Games there are many athletes with amazing achievements in swimming.

The American Trisha Zorn achieved between Moscow 1980 and Athens 2004 throughout the 55 Olympic medals, with 41 of them gold. He is the most successful Paralympic athlete in history, both in total medals and quality in terms of number of golds.

Other legends such as the Swiss are ahead in the number of medals Heinz Frei (35 medals, with 15 gold, between the summer and winter Games, as he competed in athletics, cycling and cross-country skiing), the Israeli Zipora Rubin-Rosenbaum (31 medals, with another 15 gold, between swimming, athletics, basketball and table tennis), the Swedish shooter Jonas Jacobsson (30 medals, 17 of them gold) or the swimmers Jessica Long (29 medals with 16 gold) and Sarah Storey (28 medals with 17 gold). Brazilian swimmer Daniel Dias and Norwegian winter athlete Ragnhild Myklebust have 27 medals, an elite club in which Perales also belongs.

Teresa seeks to continue climbing that ladder to Olympus as she is seventh Game. To him 48 yearshe knew he was facing one of the biggest challenges of his career. Not only because of his age or the enormous size of his goal, but because of a reality that he has experienced in recent years and that has changed the way he deals with everyday life: a loss of mobility that further forced him to vary his type of participation.

Before the Tokyo Games he suffered a left shoulder problem which reduced him during the Japanese date. Despite this, he was able to compete in his usual S5 category for people with spinal cord injuries and took silver in his favorite event, the 50 backstroke. But after that appearance at the Japanese event, the discomfort did not subside and forced him to undergo surgery.

It changed his daily life, causing him the left arm is not one of its points of support when swimming. For this reason, using the right arm as an ally, it was decided to include it in class S2, although not without controversy: later it was reclassified to S3, with swimmers with a lower level of disability, and a new reevaluation is required to return to that S2 class where he faces Olympic qualification at this stage.

In this new class due to his low mobility, therefore, although with recent experience in the World and European Championships, he experiences these Games in Paris 2024 after changing his preparation to adapt to swimming with one arm, after of a life able to use both. This is a new challenge in a unique career. Because the conditions have changed, but not the goals: Teresa Perales seeks to continue to reproduce her legend.