TObut sport has always been Assunta Legnante. Ever since, in Frattamaggiore, in the province of Naples, playing football on the street was a refuge, a good solution “to stay away from bad things” and overcome shyness. Athletics, and the Italian national team in the shot put specialty, have changed her life since 1997. «The first of my lives», she says today. “But then there was the second one.” Left blind at 34 due to congenital glaucoma, she “made friends” with her disability and started competing again, and winning, as a Paralympic athlete. Strong of his fifth world gold achieved in Paris in 2023 with 15.55he has no intention of stopping.
“In Paris, in an interview after the victory, I said that I would continue to compete as long as I had legs,” he says. «But I was wrong: you can compete even without legs. And then I’ll say it better: I’ll compete until I’m hungry». The next short-term goals? The Paris 2024 Paralympics and the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympics, on the threshold of its 50th anniversary.
Disability and resilience, the story of Assunta Legnante, paralympic athlete
Assunta Legnante, born in ’78, did not become a force of nature by living with her blindness. With glaucoma, and the prospect of losing her sight, she was born with it. «I decided to make glaucoma my friend. Of course, then he won, and he served me the bill. But, in the end, in 34 years, I had done everything I wanted. I had learned to drive, I had seen the world. I had won and I had lost.” Three victories, the silver medal at the 2002 European Indoor Athletics Championships and the gold at the 2007 Birmingham European Indoor Championships (he achieved the world record with the measurement of 19.20 m). Among her defeats was that of Athens 2004, when CONI barred her from participating in the Games for “physical unfitness”: due to a rise in intraocular pressure. «It could have been fine like this», says Legnante today.
But her fate was different: in the same summer of the year in which darkness fell on her eyes, Assunta Legnante received a call from a coach from the Paralympic national team. «You turned the light back on for me», she says, with a quip of her own.
Assunta Legnante in Paris 2023 with one of her unmistakable eye masks. Due to the strength of her arms she is nicknamed Cannoncino. photo Augusto Bizzi/FISPES
It was the beginning of 2012 and the Paralympic competitions were followed but up to a certain point: «I myself questioned the technicians on how it was possible to throw the weight for a blind athlete. But the second question I asked was… and what is the record?”. Assunta Legnante competed as a Paralympian for the first time in Turin, and immediately set a world record, with 13.50. Then came the London Olympics.
The long road towards an inclusive society begins in London 2012
«It was a tsunami“, tells. «I competed in front of a stadium with 80 thousand spectators. But those Paralympics were a springboard for everyone and for many reasons: the Paralympic blues won one more medal than the able-bodied ones. Cip beat CONI, it was sensational. For the first time we were not disabled but athletes, and people discovered it».
The backlash on society was evident. Not only did we begin to take a real interest in the Paralympics as competitions held between champions. But disability also changed its characteristics. «Since then we finally no longer need to be ashamed of having a child or grandchild in a wheelchair, or blind like me, is no longer something to hide. Why he could become a champion». Or a scientist, or the President of the Republic. There are no limits.
Legnante is optimistic, the road towards a truly inclusive society is still long, but we are at a good point: «I remember when as a child I accompanied my father, a stretcher bearer, to Lourdes: people in wheelchairs, blind or without one arm were treated like sick people. They had routes, hotels and services designated for them. It was incredible. But anyone with a disability is not sick, and we discovered it.”
No stick or guide dog
What are the steps to take? «Inclusion comes through knowledge: I’m not a mother but it can be said that I raised my ex-partner’s children. I remember how, when they followed me to the races, they experienced every detail as normal. Sitting in wheelchairs they handled prosthetics and chatted with people with Down syndrome without batting an eyelid.”
Even in the name of knowledge, Assunta does not have a cane or a guide dog: «Partly it’s because I travel too much, and I wouldn’t have time to look after a guide dog like he deserves. But it’s also true that I like to lean on people, give them the responsibility of taking me for a ride, and make him understand how I live.” Leading them to discover how much sun there is in his darkness.
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