Fellows Book Online Version 2020

17 I was lucky to grow up in a really good environment made up of really good and passionate people. When I was 11 years old I had a disease. The name of the disease is “Meningitis”, the name of the bacteria is Meningococcus. The disease is like an infection of the blood, it’s a bacteria which tries to kill you from the inside, so in someway you implode and most of the people die. 97% of the people die in the first 48 hours, so I’m one of of the 3%, I think I’m really really lucky about that also. After this disease, of course it was so tough, not only for me but for my all family, because when you are 11 years old and those who save your life cut both your arms and legs off, you get the prosthesis more or less everywhere. I’m completely made of technology in someway, 40% of my body is technology, so I’m lucky to live in this period. Everything changed, of course. My family didn’t change, this is the good thing, but all the rest changed. I learnt again how to eat, how to brush my teeth, how to fence and at the beginning it was almost impossible. They told me it was impossible to get back to fencing, because usually you do fencing with three fingers and wrist and I’m an amputee from mid arm, so I don’t have the “fencing part of my body”. At the beginning everybody told me that it was impossible. I was lucky because my father doesn’t work in the prosthesis world of course, but he really loves to help his children and I’m his daughter, so he loved to help me in being back in the fencing life. My father invented my first prosthesis for fencing and from that moment when we went back in the sport environment, I fell in love again with fencing, I fell in love with all my teammates, I fell in love with everyone. I think that it was the most important change of my life, being back into the gym, being back even in the changing room. Maybe you think it is a small and stupid thing but being naked again in front of the other people with disability, and for everyone it was weird and even for me it was weird, but I think when you teach someone what is a prosthesis, how disability works, you are not scared about it. You are just so curious, you wanna know how to open and close the hand and all my prosthesis became like a game for everyone. It was so cool at the beginning. When I came back to fencing and I came back with my team, it was really necessary for me. My first team was my family: we worked more as a team as well as as a family. My mum is the real boss of the family and my father is more or less the coach who does all the strategy, how to live. Every year my father starts the year telling us “one task I will do for the entire year” and at the end of the year he wants to learn and know what we have achieved in our year. It’s a very cool family. So being back with all my teammates and fencing was necessary, it was really good for me, for myself and for my family too. Now I’m 23 years old, I moved from Venice to Rome because of the fencing, because I followed a coach here in Rome and so I’m here for training with him and I’m part of the Police. It’s weird to say but I’m a police officer, playing for the Police Team. I began University here in Rome, I’m attending an American University, I’m studying Communication and International Affairs. I really think that trying to learn something like this could be really interesting for my life, for my future and for the job that I want to do in future. The really important thing for us was being back in sport and I learnt what was the Paralympic World: it’s a completely different world. Before I was there in the gym and all of us were doing the same with the same attitude and I learnt, through the Paralympic Sport, how many different stories there are behind all the people. Every time you see someone without a leg or an arm, doing some practice or some every kind of sport, you just want to know and learn what happened before that moment. It’s so cool and so interesting to know everyone’s stories and how they went back to the sport and how many teams there are behind every person, behind everyone. If you watch Netflix, there is this Docufilm called “Rising Phoenix” and I’m lucky, because I am part of this film. It is so interesting because this film tells our stories to the world, we can share how Paralympic Sport was born. It’s a really interesting story and how Paralympic Sport history is at a high level. There are no limits, there are so many stories, there are so many interesting things, there’s so much love from the athletes that are doing their sport. I understood that Paralympic Sport was another world, because I understood how important it was for me to be part of a team, how important it was to be part of this world and how happy I was doing my sport. So, everything changed and what we are trying to do is to teach everyone, or better what we want to share, is how Paralympic Sport works and how important it is for a Paralympic Athlete to be able to practice sport. For me in the beginning it was impossible because, I don’t know how it works in the other nations, but in Italy, if you are disabled and you want to start doing sport, the government doesn’t help you to have the prosthesis or the wheelchair or everything you need to do sport. At the beginning it was so difficult but, again, I was lucky because my parents decided to create a nonprofit association and I and my parents understood how sport was necessary to get back in life and to be happy again in someway. I started to be happy, because I met so many people that have never run in their life, because they have no legs for running,