“It’s nonetheless tough to seek out areas the place individuals with and with out mental disabilities function on a very stage footing,” admits Particular Olympics Spain Unified accomplice Cinta Gomis. “However by means of Unified Sports activities® we discovered a approach to make this potential.”
The story of Particular Olympics basketball participant Andrea Ballesta Castelltort and her Unified accomplice Cinta Gomis options within the compelling Athlete Legacy Sequence, the place they appear again on their performances at Berlin 2023 and replicate on the transformational affect that the Particular Olympics World Video games has had on their lives.
“Taking part in a part of a Unified workforce has modified me”
“Successful gold was not the target. We ready to change into a workforce and benefit from the Unified sport,” mentioned Cinta. “Ultimately, the gold was the reward for the journey that we had been on collectively since we’d met.”
Andrea added, “Taking part in as a part of a Unified workforce has modified me in addition to the opposite gamers. On and off the court docket, how we relate to one another in order that they see us [individuals with intellectual disabilities] simply as common individuals.”
“It was not simple [to win gold], however I felt glad. Success was like an explosion of pleasure. And we celebrated as a workforce.”
For Andrea, who lives in Barcelona and works as an administrative assistant at academic establishment Foment Formació, taking part in inside a Unified workforce in Berlin made her expertise extra satisfying, with the gold medal being the cherry on high.
A Unified Sports activities workforce contains gamers with and with out mental disabilities. It was impressed by a easy precept: coaching collectively and taking part in collectively is a fast path to friendship and understanding.
Picture by Brian Gresham
“It’s about eradicating labels”
Andrea’s mom Miriam says, “You see them [players and Unified partners] battling, they’re warriors. They fight their greatest. It’s fantastic to see.”
Her father Luis provides, “Andrea has been on a journey which has not been simple. And basketball is an apprenticeship that then helps her in her each day life on a piece and on a private stage. And it has helped her obtain targets that some years in the past might need appeared unimaginable.”
Particular Olympics Spain basketball coach Anna Pàmies mentioned that Unified Sports activities “in the long run is about eradicating labels. We’re a workforce.”
Andrea first began taking part in basketball in elementary faculty whereas dwelling in Madrid, when she joined the Virgen de Mirasierra workforce. Upon shifting to Barcelona in 2012, she started competing for the AcidH-Lluïsos de Gracia workforce, which she represented at quite a few tournaments.
Andrea, who performs both as a guard or ahead, regards her expertise on the Pau Gasol Academy since 2016 as top-of-the-line in her life, not only for assembly the NBA legend, but additionally for vastly bettering her approach and studying the best way to play each individually and as a workforce.
The World Video games in Berlin continued a journey that started on the 2019 version in Abu Dhabi, the place she “had a really particular expertise as an individual and as a participant. It was a really demanding competitors too, highlighting the connection with different nations and the local weather of friendship within the Spanish Nationwide Crew.”
The 26-year-old describes herself as “a fighter, a workforce participant and a very good shooter.”
