Juan Diego Blas is the official voice of athletes with disabilities in Guatemala and America – 2024-04-17 08:45:14

Juan Diego Blas is a Guatemalan para athlete who was born with a congenital absence of the fibulathat is, without the right leg from the knee onwards, but that has not been an impediment in his life and after shining so much in sport with and without disabilities and be one step away from a historic qualification for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, He was elected as the first president of the Athletes Commission of the Americas Paralympic Committee.

For Juan Diego this represents a great responsibility, but also a golden opportunity to continue with his life mission: promote sport as a means of development for people with disabilities.

“The essential and best thing for people with disabilities is sportit helped me overcome it, that’s why I work to promote it (sport) as a means of development, it was what helped me, what changed me,” says Juan Diego in conversation for Free Press.

The American Paralympic Committee (APC) is the entity that oversees the development of sport for people with disabilities on the American continent and one of its main objectives is to build more inclusive societies, and to this end it made the decision in 2023 to create the Athletes Commission, a unit that in the words of Juan Diego “exists for athletes.”

As newly elected president of the commission, Juan Diego expresses that he will become part of the APC Board of Directors and that this is an opportunity to make a difference since he now represents the voice of all athletes with disabilities in America.

“My role is to be the voice of the athletes before the Board of Directors, they appointed me to the commission of different events such as the Paracentral American and Caribbean Games and the Parapan American Games.”.

Juan Diego Blas uses a prosthesis on his right leg. This has accompanied him in more than twenty years of sports career. (Free Press Photo; Oscar Ordóñez)

Juan Diego comments that his responsibility is great, since the athletes of the continent will be attentive. “Before (the Athletes Commission) did not exist, it is the first time it has been done, we hope to address specific issues that matter to the athletes and then bring them to the Board of Directors.”

“Among the planned projects are educational ones. We want to support education to promote Paralympic sports and reach more people.“, he expresses, in addition to inviting people with disabilities to practice sports.

“You can approach the Guatemalan Paralympic Committee if you are interested in practicing sports, there they can guide you and see which sports you are most eligible for,” he said.

For now Juan Diego combines his life as an archery athlete with his work as a promoter of sports with disabilities and participating in the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games is his dream.

In addition to practicing fronton, a sport in which he began at the age of 13 and where he competed in five absolute world championships and won two medals in the Bolivarian Games in 2013, he now dedicates himself fully to para archery, where he became the first representative of Guatemala internationally. (Free Press Photo: Oscar Ordóñez)

Thanks to its emergence two and a half years ago in archery and its great international results, including a historic fifth place in the Parapan American Games in Guatemala’s debut in the event, the Guatemalan Archery Association opened a specific program for that people with disabilities can follow their example and join high performance.

Just last March, he was one victory away from securing his qualification for Paris 2024 by finishing in fourth position in the World Ranking Tournament held in Dubai, the last event that gave tickets to the Paralympians.

However, Juan Diego maintains the hope of being present in the French capital via the bipartite invitation granted by World Archery and the International Paralympic Committee.

“For Paris they will give three invitations, I am the only athlete from America with an unclassified record and in the whole world only one shooter from Africa also has it, we are waiting for them to invite us for having done a good job during these years,” he expressed. Blas.