The Bronze Forgiveness by Nil Riudavets

“He could have lost his life completely and luckily he only took one arm, my right arm”remember It is August 1, 2019 in El Prat de Llobregat. Nil Riudavets (April 3, 1996, Mahón) He competes in a team triathlon and is in the cycling segment. Then another bike crashed into him. Go ahead. The accident was very serious.

Riudavets was then twenty-three years old. Now he is twenty-eight. Five have passed since the accident. because Riudavets not only lost his life, but he got up and went on. In a big way. This Monday, as a great reward for his fight, he debuted in some Paralympic Games in Paris 2024. And that’s not all: he climbed the triathlon podium in the PTS4 category after a great comeback to win one bronze medal.

There are faces that say it all. But Riudavets wanted to express himself in words. “Many complex moments come to my mind. I had an accident five years ago,” he recalled as soon as he finished the race. Here, as in previous years, he fought with everyone. “We ran the last two hundred meters in a painful sprint to get third place. It has been incredible to compete in this environment. With my family, with my partner, with my friends, who were cheering me on,” he said, grateful.

Nil has been racing for many years. If five years ago I did a triathlon, in the summer of 2019 another race began. His life changed in a matter of seconds. “I have to adapt to the situation, grieve. For three years I hated all sports, especially triathlon“, he explained with great emotion. Perhaps at that time it was impossible to imagine that that young man would be this Monday with a bronze medal on the podium at the Games.

Because Nil might throw in the towel. But he took his time and decided to continue doing what he loves most. “After three years, I forgave myself and decided to try to go to the Paralympic Games”explained Riudavets. That decision, regardless of what happened next, represented a massive shift in thinking. “I tried to see the double morality of having a disability, because I could also be in this environment competing against people with disabilities,” he reflected.

An iron will

Riudavets decided to give his sport another chance. In 2022 he began competing in the PTS4 Paralympic class. He stood at the start of the World Cup in A Coruña and, seven years after his accident, he was on the podium. He started repeating the competitions and the results kept coming. Proof of this is his European silver in 2023 or the victories achieved in Alhandra (Portugal) and Abu Dhabi World Cups.

In just a few years, Nil Riudavets has gone from hating triathlon to the starting line of the Paralympic Games, a process that ended after the good results he got in recent months. But triathlon owes him a good moment on a great stage after all his suffering. “I think until I assimilate it with my partner and my family I didn’t realize that I had already won a bronze medal in the Games“, he excitedly said this Monday after crossing the finish line of Paris 2024.

This is not surprising. Monday’s race made Nil Riudavets feel a certain love for triathlon that he always had until everything changed. At the finish line he realized that what he had won was more than a bronze. “When you heal, you are very happy and very lucky to have the people who were there during this whole process”he said. “It’s for them. It’s for my coach, who also helped me a lot. It’s for Álex (Sánchez Palomero, also a triathlete at the Games in the Riudavets modality), who after winning his bronze in Tokyo has been supportive throughout this process,” he said, thankfully.

Three years later, Riudavets replaced his friend Álex yesterday. Five years later, triathlon changed its life story again yesterday. He just confirmed that there are things that are impossible to hate. “At the end of the day it’s just sport. It’s about trying to be as competitive as possible. Sport gave me this moment, gave me a medal. It’s amazing” he said excitedly.

“After three years, I forgave myself and decided to try to go to the Paralympic Games.” It took Nil Riudavets three years to forgive himself. To show himself that he can’t continue hating the sport he loved. This Monday he received the well-deserved award for his fight, his effort and his courage: a remission that earned him a bronze medal in the Games.