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"I remember being on the court at a World Cup and, a moment later, being outside, sitting in a chair. They had to take me out. The team doctor explained to me that I had had a seizure and had been absent. Not completely stopped, but lost for 20 seconds, like a zombie."

Lucía Martín-Portugués

is the best fencer in Spain and currently the fourth in the world: her medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games is a logical choice.

In her competitions, she moves back and forth with a saber in her hand, never stopping, the speed is very high.

But at the same time, she lives with a disease, epilepsy, which causes absence seizures, that is, it isolates her from the world.

The relationship between sport and a disease is not simple.

Absolutely.

"I have suffered many crises in tournaments and training, but they last very little, no more than half a minute and it gives me time to recover," he comments in conversation with EL MUNDO about an epilepsy that he assures "affects other athletes, even if they don't want to expose it publicly ".

"I feel that I have to do pedagogy because for many years I was not diagnosed and it was distressing," proclaims Martín-Portugués and narrates the entire process up to the present moment: "When I was a child I already suffered absence seizures in class, I got dizzy, I wanted to to vomit, but they told me it was low blood sugar or low blood pressure. I didn't care either, honestly. But when [soccer player Antonio] Puerta died, I read in a newspaper that he had also suffered similar symptoms and I was quite worried. I I was then 16 or 17 years old. I had all kinds of tests, especially cardiological, until they referred me to a neurologist and he told me that I had epilepsy from the book ".


the right treatment

For several years, the fencer was visiting specialists, testing drugs that would help her and only about six years ago, already at 26, her current neurologist hit on the treatment.

"Now I don't have a crisis and I can be calm. The pills make me a little tired, I have to exert more will, but taking that away I'm fine," she says, and so well.

In 2022 he achieved four medals in the World Cup, the last one gold, a milestone that Spain had not celebrated since the last century.

At the age of 32, after controlling his epilepsy, Martín-Portugués has found the path to victory, but the improvement in his disease has not been the only factor in his favour.

"There have been many. Fencing is a strategic sport, which requires maturity, knowing how to interpret your opponent's movements, understanding the traps. That takes time to learn. Also, three years ago, a new coach came in, [

José Luis Álvarez

], and with him I approach everything in a different way. Before I focused on winning, winning and winning; now I focus on improving my technique, my tactics, my attitude. The rest comes by itself", he analyzes with a interesting road ahead.

paris on the horizon

Qualifying for the Olympic Games in fencing is a maze of competitions, individually and by teams, in which you cannot fail, except in the World Cup and the European Championships next summer.

In fact, until now, as happened in Tokyo 2020, Martín-Portugués has never gotten an Olympic ticket.

This time he touches her.

Born in Villanueva de la Cañada, the youngest of a large family, her parents signed her up for ballet, but at the age of six she already insisted on doing that with the swords that her three brothers did.

"The thing about hitting me comes from home," she admits.

Despite the fact that she competed against children until she was 13 or 14 years old, in the training categories she triumphed, she won several Spanish Championships and at 20, while she was still a junior, she hung her first medal in the World Cup .

She was already in the elite and, at the same time, she lacked a lot.

"The transition from junior to senior was difficult for me and, also, when I was 23 years old, my father died of lung cancer and I had a hard time. That was combined with the search for epilepsy treatment, with the studies [Dentistry is finishing], with hours working as a referee [he became international]... It has not been easy to order everything, but I think that now I am at my best moment", admits the fencer who has already learned to defeat his rivals and, at the same time, to his illness.


According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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