Sports for assumed diversity!
At the age of 40, he is one of the four athletes representing Argentina’s national Paracanoe team. He started swimming and rowing as a child and today he’s among the world’s eight best canoeists. A career that brings the paralympic dream to life, showing that everything’s possible. From his country’s National Rowing Track (Pista Nacional de Remo y Centro de Deportes Náuticos), to his qualification for the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Nicolás Crosta navigates through his personal history with the same passion he shows when paddling.
Some people choose the word “disabled,” while others prefer “differently abled.” Which term would you like me to use in this interview?
Personally, I don’t like the word “disabled.” I don’t feel a disabled person. But I don’t like the term “differently abled” either. I feel I’m like any other person. We are different, but not disabled —I believe each of us is skilled at their own thing. I started swimming when I was four because my sister used to go to swimming classes and I always felt fulfilled while in the water. It’s a place where my lack of a leg doesn’t show. I refer to it as my “no-leg,” and in the water, it doesn’t feel like an obstacle. If I was in a wheelchair, the obstacles or setbacks from the cities that don’t foster accessibility for people with reduced mobility would probably be more noticeable for me. But in my case, I can go up and down the stairs, and I can also access high-floored buses. I can move around freely. And in the water I feel free too —more free, even.
Do you feel that sense of freedom, both in the water and in your daily life, means rowing upstream?
I understand people see me differently and I hear people judging my situation. Recently, in my first consultation with a doctor, he said “poor thing” after I answered his question about what had happened to my leg. Poor thing?! First of all, I’m thankful I was born this way and I didn’t have an accident when I was 20 years old. I never had that “I can’t do this anymore” moment. That doctor has no idea I train six times a week, double shift, that I go to the gym every day and have 15 stimuli every week, like any other high-performance athlete. The fact that I’m lacking a leg doesn’t mean I’m weak, honey. It’s really sad that some people think that way. Poor them!
Sports competitions must comprehend all diversities: sexual, social, physical. They can’t just be a passive mechanism. Do you think it’s the minorities’ responsibility to step forward and actively ask for room for participation in sporting events?
Sports competitions must comprehend all diversities: sexual, social, physical. They can’t just be a passive mechanism. Do you think it’s the minorities’ responsibility to step forward and actively ask for room for participation in sporting events?
In my opinion, significant progress has been made, but there’s still a long way to go depending on each sport and professional environment. I believe that should come from the top —sports institutions and political bodies should foster diversity in the world of sports.sParasports still lack resources, but also concrete measures. As an example, during my last World Cup, in Polonia, there were four paralympic athletes while in that same competition there were 20 in the conventional category. There’s still a clear inequality in terms of accessibility in parasports, compared to conventional sports. It’s paramount that this should grow into a more equal situation. And I’m not even mentioning the fact that in canoeing the results are usually better in parasports.
“We should be thinking about disregarding the term <‘inclusion’>, because talking about inclusion unfortunately means there is exclusion…”
Sometimes, equality is a victory. However, don’t you think we should work towards the possibility of organizing the Olympics and the Paralympics simultaneously in order to change the audience’s perception of parasports?
Of course! First of all, so that us athletes can share the experience of going to the Olympics with the same people we find in World Cups, World Championships, the Pan American Games and the South American Games, where conventional sports and parasports are put together in a single event. Why doesn’t this happen with the Olympics and the Paralympics? Why do the Olympics take place first and then come the Paralympics? We usually hear excuses related to logistics, but maybe the time has come to follow other competitions’ examples and explore new approaches.
In your career, have you ever felt any limitations in your athletic development?
Being able to balance intensive training with work is difficult —we spend too many hours doing physical exercise. Every athlete deserves to have the necessary time to rest after training sessions. My routine includes morning sessions, followed by going to the office, and after work I go back to paddling or the gym, which means my day ends very late. Sometimes it’s difficult to carry that double load, but I need to work to survive. However, I’d love to have the chance to devote myself to sports completely, free myself of the burdens of work. In order to get that, I need a scholarship or a sponsor. For the time being, the scholarship offered by Argentina’s Sports Department isn’t enough. In order to apply for an ENARD (Argentina’s national body for high-performance athletes) scholarship, you need to have been a finalist at a World Championship. I managed to get there once last year, in Poland, but it was a World Cup.
“I never had that <‘I can’t do this anymore’ moment.”>.”
Practicing high-performance sports at the age of forty is now much more than just a trend: Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and many others keep practicing their sports at the highest of levels. What are the next challenges for you?
Thanks for reminding me that I’m old! I’m only 42 (laughs).In parasports, it’s more common for athletes to take part in competitions at an older age, which often happens due to accidents that occur at later stages in their lives. The passing of time plays an important role. For the time being, my goal is to keep training, since the selection process to decide my qualification has already started. My performance will determine whether I can participate in Hungary’s Championship, which is my last chance to get a spot at the Paralympics. And in the future, I hope they organize Paralympics for older athletes (laughs)..
3 makings to be a paralympic athlete
- Perseverance
- Resolve
- Resilience
His track record
- 2 World Cups
- 3 World Championships
- 2 South American Games
- 1 Pan American Game
