Paralympic skier Cristian Ribera, 19, still has vivid memories of the last of the three houses he lived in in the Vila Ana neighborhood, in Jundiaí, a community in which he spent most of his childhood and adolescence.
In the space shared with his mother, father, four brothers and two nephews, nothing impressed him as much as the twenty steps he had to go up and down daily to play with friends.
“My mother always said, ‘Go down, now. Didn’t you go up there alone?’ I take this issue of being independent a lot into my life”, she tells sheet.
The apparently simple effort common to most people was like a personal challenge for Ribera, a carrier of arthrogryposis multiplex congenita – a rare syndrome that, in his case, limited the development of the muscles of the lower limbs during pregnancy.
Almost always supported by a skateboard, part of his daily routine was the victory on the steps, which forged him as the country’s greatest hope for an unprecedented medal in the Winter Games among Olympic and Paralympic athletes. The Beijing-2022 Paralympic edition starts this Friday (4).
“I learned a lot because I’ve also suffered a lot. I had 21 surgeries to correct the atrophy of my legs. I had a dream: to walk. I cut tendons, put in a cage to stretch, I tried everything. I didn’t want to anymore. I preferred to accept myself”, he explained.
Ribera competes since 2016 in the sitting category in cross-country skiing. Two years later, at just 15 years old, he was the youngest of all the competitors at the Paralympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. He finished with a surprising sixth place in the 15 km event.
He got to know the sport almost by chance. After having practiced sports such as swimming, athletics, tennis and skateboarding, he heard suspiciously about a clinic that would take place in Jundiaí, offered by CBDN (Brazilian Snow Sports Confederation).
“I was looking for a sport that would lead me to high performance. I thought about athletics, swimming. When they came to my city to talk about skiing on asphalt or snow, I really liked it because it required strength, balance and had adrenaline. than usual”, he explains.
Born in Cerejeiras, in the countryside of Rondônia, the illness that physically limited him made his parents move to the countryside of São Paulo in search of treatment when he was only three months old.
Today, Ribera is seen as a diamond, an outlier for anyone who trains away from the snow with the aid of a device called a roller ski.
To get closer to the reality of the tests, he has the support of a psychologist. The professional passes concentration dynamics so that the athletes can visualize the snow that does not exist in the country.
“It’s a mentalization. We need to have memories as if we were really on the ice and the body gets used to it. Our race is even more difficult because the course is never the same, so much so that there is no world record.”
The credentials for the unprecedented medal increased after winning second place in the world championship, held in Lillehammer, Norway, at the end of January. The result came in the speed test, the sprint, Ribera’s favorite.
In the Paralympic schedule there are three events in the modality: the longest, of 18 km; the average, 10 km, and the sprint, between 800 m and 1.2 km. In the first two, the competitors’ starts obey 30-second intervals. Whoever makes the shortest time wins. In the sprint, the dispute between them is simultaneous.
“I really like all three, but as I did very well in the sprint, it is clear that there is greater confidence and expectation for the race. Making the slightest mistake is fundamental”, he says.
An expectation, by the way, that Cristian assures him not to weigh on his shoulders. Despite the projections of a great feat already for Beijing, age allows dreaming much further. The current world champion, Russian Ivan Golubkov, is 26 years old.
“I’m fine and I try not to think too much about demands. I know how much I trained, how hard I worked, but I’m very down to earth. I dream big, I want to be a Paralympic champion, but I also understand that at my age I still have a lot ahead of me” , explains.
Since the end of December, he has been in Europe for training in Italy, Finland, Sweden and Norway. During the period, he tries to occupy his mind and be inspired by documentaries by Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo and former American basketball player Michael Jordan, two of his main idols in the sport.
“They are great inspirations for focus and how to win. I always want to improve, but nothing that goes beyond the line of being at all costs.”
In China, Brazil will have the largest delegation in an edition of the Winter Paralympic Games.
In addition to Ribera, there will be five more competitors: Aline Rocha, Guilherme Cruz Rocha, Robelson Moreira Lula and Wesley dos Santos, all in cross-country skiing. André Barbieri will compete on snowboard.
Ribera can return home with the feat of having climbed some steps again, this time from the dreamed podium in the Winter Paralympics.
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