Amelio Castro, of the Paralympic refugee team in Paris 2024: I am a privileged young man

Life has not made it easy for Colombian Amelio Castro Thick. He lost his mother when he was just 16 years old. At 20, a serious traffic accident left him in a wheelchair and spent four years admitted to a hospital. A few years ago he had to leave his country, marked by guerrillas violence, in an escape forward that brought him to Italy.

Still it is defined as “a privileged young man.” “I have been fortunate to live many difficult situations,” he said Wednesday during the presentation of the jubilee of the sport that will be held this weekend in the framework of the Holy Year of Hope.

“Perhaps another person would have taken those situations as an excuse to surrender or, above all, to regret, but I, thanks to faith – who knew her just there, in suffering, in the hospital – I have had the ability to move forward despite all those things that happened to me. And I hope to see how God has acted in the past and know that he will also do so in the future, as he is doing,” he explained before Vatican

All those things that speak are also the difficulties he faced as an immigrant. He arrived in Rome without money, without knowing the language and with a visa of just three months. But he was clear about his dream: continue practicing Paralympic fencing.

For the young, this sport has not only been a way of rehabilitation, but also a philosophy of life. “Many just want to win, but sometimes I celebrate when I lose, because I learn from mistakes,” he confessed. “My mental coach told me: ‘It is not difficult to get, the difficult thing is to stay.’ And that is what I want: get and stay,” he said.

His personal path – a fact of sacrifice and discipline – earned him one of the eight athletes who were part of the Paralympic refugee team in the Paris 2024 Games.

Thanks to the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and a bronze medal in the Pan -Americans of São Paulo, he managed to qualify for this important appointment. Although in the end he lost in the round of 16 before the Brazilian champion Jovane Guissone, being in the Olympic Games was already a victory. “Every time I lose, every time I fall, before getting up, I stop to look at what were the situations that made me fall. I ask God for strength to get up again, and above all, I always keep going with hope,” he said.

Inspired by Pope Francis

In fact, faith has been an inseparable companion in their battles. He has also accompanied him the inspiration that Pope Francis gave him during his trip to Colombia in September 2017.

“When he was in Medellín, he said: ‘Do not lose the ability to dream. When a young man loses that capacity, he becomes a retiree of life.’ That phrase has never forgotten,” he said. “Not letting hope steals is what I try to convey every day,” he said.