Women, diverse, high-performance athletes

Modern societies have gradually over recent times included on their political, social, economic and cultural agendas the needs of those with some type of disadvantage or inequality, as a consequence of their functional diversity. It is essential to guarantee the rights of this part of the population (who in Spain amounted to 4.4 million people in 2022; 59% women) to achieve full social participation.

Adapted sport is perfectly aligned with the inclusive philosophy, whether as a leisure pursuit, for therapy or in competition. In the late 1940s, Dr Ludwig Guttman in fact discovered the efficacy of sport as a process of physical and psychological rehabilitation, which he used with soldiers injured in the Second World War. This gave rise, among other developments, to wheelchair basketball, one of the most popular sports on the Paralympic programme. It is today played in more than 80 countries.

The first Paralympic wheelchair basketball competition took place at the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960, just 12 years after the Olympic Games resumed following their wartime suspension. Women did not begin competing in the discipline until the Tel Aviv Games in 1968.

At the Tokyo Paralympics in 2020, Spain's women's wheelchair basketball team claimed 8th place. Before Tokyo, they had only taken part in the Barcelona '92 Paralympics, as the host country. In December 2021 the national team made history by claiming their first medal, a bronze, at the European Championships in Madrid.

Film:Cabeza y corazón