Swimmer Raquel Correia, 23, from Associação Cultural e Desportiva Colégio Bernardette Romeira, was crowned national champion of adapted swimming, right on her debut in competitions, in the National Winter Championship that took place on the 5th and 6th of March, in Vila Franca de Xira, in a 50 meter long pool.
141 swimmers from 28 Portuguese clubs participated, as well as swimmers from Spain and Poland.
«Raquel is a force of nature», guarantees her trainer Nuno Caetano, from ACDCBR. She was only 22 years old when she learned to swim in classes, having joined the ACDCBR swimming team in early 2015 to fulfill her dream of participating in competitions in the sport.
Competing in Class S15, Hearing Impaired, and «after breaking down several physical barriers (starting in the daily training process) and psychological», Raquel presented herself in her best form for this Championship. It was a debut that the swimmer had longed for, «to get to know this fantastic world full of champions and champions, sometimes with motor problems, mental illness, deafness, blindness, cerebral palsy and transplant recipients».
And her debut couldn't have gone better: Raquel Correia won two national titles, in the 50 meters Mariposa and 200 meters Freestyle, and was also runner-up nationally in the 50 and 100 meters Freestyle.
He achieved, in these events, five new personal records, having been 1,1 seconds from the National Record at 50 meters Mariposa, his favorite technique.
Raquel, from São Brás de Alportel and residing in Quelfes, trains daily in the municipal swimming pools of Olhão, with her pure swimming colleagues.
It was via the internet that the swimmer met coach Nuno Caetano, who has been working in Olhão since September 2014, and was born in Vila Nova de Gaia, in the north of the country.
Together they have been working so that Raquel “improves herself every day, believing that dreams can be lived, with the medium-long term goals being to achieve minimum participation in international Adapted Swimming championships”.
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