“On guard, ready? Go!” Judith Rodríguez (Vigo, 29 years old) only had to hear this phrase again to make it clear: she would never give up fencing again. The Galician fencer was one of the young promises of this sport. She had been practising it since she was eight years old and had achieved national and international success. But when she lost her right leg in a traffic accident, she decided that it was no longer for her. Although there was a wheelchair modality. “I didn’t want to know anything about it,” she remembers in Paris. It was difficult for her. It took time. Until she heard the three words that start the duel again, during the World Cup in São Paulo. Her debut in the Paralympics started in style, with a bronze in foil. This Friday she was looking for a new medal in fencing, but she lost in the quarter-finals.
Fencing has three modalities: foil, épée and sabre. In the first two, points are awarded by touching the opponent with the tip of the weapon. The first fencer to reach 15 points or to score the most points after three rounds of three minutes each wins the fight. Strength, tactics and speed are key. As is concentration. “As soon as you lose focus for a moment, you’re already hit,” explains Rodríguez. Unlike in foot fencing, Paralympic fencers compete tied to a wheelchair anchored to the ground. They can neither advance nor retreat. The distance is determined by the athlete extending their arm.
“Here we use our whole torso. Abdominal muscles, back and arms,” adds the Galician fencer. In her case, she uses her left arm to push herself forward and backward. Her right arm to load the weapon. “I loved qualifying for the Games. I think it is also a way and an opportunity to make wheelchair fencing known in Spain and for us to grow much more,” she says. Spain has not had a fencing representative at the Paralympic Games for twelve years. It had not won any medals in this discipline since Sydney 2000. But Rodríguez has put it back on the map, although she believes there is still a long way to go.
“You always hear: he is a champion of Spain, but a Paralympic champion. Why this Paralympic thing? It seems like you always have to add an adjective. In the end, we are professional athletes just like the Olympians. We train the same and do the same,” she reflects. She started fencing as a child. It was her mother who asked her if she wanted to try it. “It’s like Peter Pan,” she told her.
She didn’t hesitate for a minute. “I say that if you give a child a sword and tell him that he has to touch another child and try not to touch you, he thinks it’s super fun.” For her it was and still is. In addition to seeing it as a game, Rodríguez considers it a sport that combines many things. And that is precisely what she likes. “It’s like mental chess,” she explains. “A chess that you have in your mind, but also in your body. Like, I have to do this movement at the highest physical level, but taking into account that the opponent is not going to make another movement that you have to solve,” she explains.
When Rodríguez talks about fencing, he does so with passion. But he also remembers the moment when he didn’t even want to hear about it. It was after the accident, when his life changed suddenly, in June 2018. He remembers everything. He was returning to Galicia from a competition. He was in the co-pilot seat. “On the way I fell asleep and when I opened my eyes I saw that we were going around in circles in the car.” At that moment, Rodríguez continues, “I told myself that if I survived it would be without a leg and I wouldn’t be able to fence.” These were the first things he thought, he says. “On the other hand, I always say that I could have lost my life, but I lost a leg.”
After the accident came operations, rehabilitation and a long process of reconstruction. And sport became a thing of the past. “I didn’t want to know anything about fencing,” he recalls. Neither on foot nor in a wheelchair. “I think that when something like that happens to you, the shock of having your life suddenly fall apart, in the end you feel lost and you don’t know how to rebuild a new one.” He began to change little by little. “There was a moment when I said, ‘You’ve been thinking for a long time about the things you can’t do. If the fact that you can’t live without fencing hurts you so much, why don’t you try the other modality that you can do? ’” he recalls.
She was also helped by a visit to the hospital by Désirée Villa, the athlete who lost a leg due to medical negligence. It had an impact on her. “A girl so young with a case so similar to mine and she has made her life, she has her training, her competitions, she is a high-level athlete. At that moment I thought why not me.” It took her a while to return to the hospital. club where he used to train, in VigoBut when she returned, her teacher – who accompanied her to the Games and has known her since she was eight – gave her two chairs. They started a new class. Rodríguez had to learn a new type of fencing. But so did he.
“I believe that every human being needs objectives and goals for everyday life and to be able to build themselves up for the future,” she reflects. She got them back thanks to sport. “It made me build my new life.” In 2022, Rodríguez won gold in the epee at the São Paulo World Cup. In front of the audience, she stands up from her chair with a scream. She cries with emotion. A Bronze in foil in Warsaw and closes it with third place in the European championship in épée. In 2024, she repeats the continental bronze of 2022 and takes another in foil during the European Championships in Paris. This September, she rounded off her list of achievements with another bronze in foil. But this one is Olympic.
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