A table tennis match can be opted for one or another player in seconds. When Álvaro Varela (Seville; 1982) is playing, for him there is nothing more than the ball, the shovel and his opponent. He does not remember anything else, not even his muscular atrophy or that he is training for his rooms Paralympic Games. He abstracts and plays, neither more nor less, like any other elite athlete.
Your partner in the Spanish Paralympic Table Tennis Technique, José Manuel Ruiz (Granada; 1978), he is also a physical education professor at an educational center and, although he tries to avoid it, his students find on the Internet all his record: European champion and individual world and teams, the only thing he lacks is Olympic gold and that is what will look for London.
In the Olympic village the nerves are in the flower, it is more difficult to concentrate
“The atmosphere of games is very different from any other championship. Media attention and the fact of living with other athletes in the Olympic village makes the nerves to the skin of leather and nobody plays at their level,” Varela explains with the hope that his experience in other events will allow him to keep the concentration in the competition.
In Paralympic table tennis there are 11 categories depending on the dysfunction of each player. The first five are in a wheelchair, from the sixth to the tenth standing, and the last one is reserved for mental disabilities. Varela competed in class seven, but as his muscular condition is degenerative, a few months ago the medical committee reduced him to the sixth and now he is the first in the ranking mundial.
I would like there to be no distinctions between women, men, Olympic or Paralympic
In the concentration of the selection during the days before the trip to London, distension reigns and jokes fly at the speed of the balls. There are six players who will compete in different categories, two of them in a wheelchair, both individually and in pairs, and the hopes of returning home loaded with medals are high.
“I would like there to be no distinctions of men, women, Olympic or Paralympic we are athletes, training and effort is the same for everyone,” says Ruiz who, with his malformation in the right arm competes in category 10 and will try in London to snatch him the First world position To the Chinese Palist and take the gold medal.
