Elena Semechin, that is still to finish below her first title Kravtsov, required 3 efforts: after Rio and London, she finally received the Paralympics gold medal she had truly been wishing for inTokyo But after that got here the shock: a thoughts lump! The reality that she is contending in Paris is completely nothing besides a miracle.
Elena is being within the ready area of Berlin’s Charité together with her partnerPhilipp Semechin She has truly merely originated from an MRI. She is drained and on aspect at the very same time. Philipp is holding her hand. The pair acknowledges the situation. Every 5 months Elena is infused with comparability instrument, after that the evaluation complies with – has the most cancers cells returned?
After testing the photographs, neurosurgeon Ran Xu brings the intense aspect: “Fortunately, the findings are stable.” And the pair takes a breath and a sigh of alleviation. “It’s really very inspiring and impressive how you’re doing this. “Really great,” highlights the medical skilled. “I’m doing my best,” states the noticeably joyful particular person.
Elena and her partner, who can be her teacher, have truly been with a rollercoaster of emotions. But Elena is wholesome and balanced and states with self-confidence: “Cancer chose the wrong person. “Cancer didn’t manage to take control of my life.”
Only 2 p.c left
The Kazakh citizen has truly wanted to eliminate a wide range of challenges in her life. In key establishment, the family noticed that the seven-year-old may not see accurately. Her imaginative and prescient after that progressively worn-out – the assaults had been most common and worst all through the age of puberty. She had her final assault a few years earlier, and he or she approximates her imaginative and prescient to be at 2 p.c: “I see very blurry, contrasts and a few colors. But I can’t recognize faces. To me, people are just silhouettes.”
Swimming as “a gateway to the world”
Strange: She does not actually just like the water by any means. She is unquestionably not a “water rat” “But I noticed that swimming is a gateway to the world for me.” Here she will verify to everybody what she will do. For years she was simply ever earlier than knowledgeable what she couldn’t do and what she wouldn’t have the power to perform.
Krawzow explains herself as “a bit megalomaniac” She purposely doesn’t use a strolling stick. Otherwise it could actually be hassle for her to always have one thing in her hand. The result’s routine swellings and bumps. But this blowing assists her when swimming, because of the truth that she doesn’t go very simply on herself there both.
“As a breaststroke swimmer, I can also use the strokes to get my bearings. “I now know how many strokes I need for one lane and roughly when the wall will come,” states the skilled athlete from the Berlin swimming group, together with: “But of course things go wrong sometimes. I’ve broken fingers and torn ligaments. That’s just part of it.”
Paralympic gold on the third effort
Krawzow is a a number of globe and European champion. Her most popular event is the 100 m breaststroke. At her Paralympics launching in London in 2012, she missed out on the platform. In Rio in 2016, she presently took silver. Five years later, because of the coronavirus, her want for a gold medal grew to become a actuality in Tokyo.
I depend on Elena to do something. She is so stable in her head. She can focus rather a lot on her goals – despite having quite a lot of numerous different factors happening that occupy not simply her mentally but moreover her time. I’ve truly by no means ever skilled something like that previous to.
“When the games in Tokyo were over, I enjoyed it so much,” she remembers. But she was troubled by frustrations that might not disappear. On the day of the MRI session, which was supposed to acquire to the bottom of the discomfort, Elena and Philipp almost certainly to the jewellery professional to select rings for his or her supposed wedding ceremony occasion.
The medical prognosis after that tore her “from cloud nine to the concrete floor. “It was like an impact,” Elena explains. And her partner describes in retrospection: “She had just celebrated her greatest sporting success ever as a Paralympic champion. And less than three months later you don’t know whether she will live another year.”
Wedding the day earlier than thoughts surgical remedy
Elena supposed to be stable, but she moreover understood concerning the threats: “The tumor was near the speech center, the motivation center and the personality center. “So everything that is so incredibly important to me.” As if the situation had not been detrimental enough, the lump was scattered. It was troublesome to tell what was the thoughts and what was the lump. “And if they cut just a millimeter off and chop something off, it could go completely wrong.”
The pair went to the process quickly beforehand. “It was important for me that I could say “I do” myself in an affordable state,” tensions Elena, together with: “In retrospect, that may have been selfish. But everything went well.”
When she received up after the process, she was “totally dazed” and “extremely thirsty.” When a registered nurse knowledgeable her that she had not been permitted to eat alcohol something but, she merely talked to the next registered nurse. “He gave me something to drink. Then I knew: I’m still the old Elena.”
“As a husband, what the trainer demands is borderline”
Seven days after the process, she appeared at coaching with a bandaged head. “That was crazy. But that was the Elena I knew as a coach,” states Philipp, that led 2 lives within the weeks and months that complied with: As an teacher, it was a marvel what the swimmer can. “As a husband, what the coach asked of her was borderline.”
However, sporting exercise provided the convalescent the help she required all through radiation remedy and radiation. When she actually felt detrimental, she supposed to have the power to on the very least criticize her bodily points on her swimming. And she is restricted: “If I had just settled for the fact that I was doing chemo and nothing else, I would never have returned to sport.”
From endurance skilled athlete to eruptive dash specialist
But concern is continually there: when she has certain types of frustrations, she has recollects to the second previous to the process. She truly additionally wanted to maintain an nervousness assault. “I know that the cancer can come back. “I always expect that everything in my life can change from zero to a hundred,” says Elena.
At the very least her coaching has truly remodeled. Endurance utilized to be her greatest stamina. She when swam roughly 75 kilometers in per week’s coaching faculty, stories the trainer. After the process, it was an optimum of 45. Now she is functioning much more on her sprinting talents. Explosiveness, energy and optimum stamina are the first emphasis.
Goal: To gold additionally faster than in Tokyo
Her resurgence has truly presently been a hit: in 2014 she received the 100 m breaststroke on the Para World Championships But that’s inadequate for her: she has truly established herself the problem of successful Paralympic gold as soon as once more – and in a much better time than in Tokyo.
The frame of mind in Paris wants to assist with this, after the corona unhappiness in Japan The 2024 Paralympics are supposed to be “electrifying” They will most positively be “very emotional” however the chaos of the previous few years.
