It is early in the morning and I meet Simone in the entrance hall of the swimming pool. He is seven years old but looks younger. Simone is a partially sighted child. He is excited, intrigued and, at the same time, slightly cautious and a little wary. His mother explains to me that he can only really see shadows; his visual field is extremely limited. This is his first time in a swimming pool.
I take him by the hand and explain what the swimming pool looks like. I make him touch the edge of the pool and then walk around it with him; he trusts my hands and my voice and eventually enters the water… in the end he tells me that he feels like a little fish when he is in the water.
Then Luke arrives, who was left hemiplegic after an operation on his brain; he has managed to overcome his anger and fear and just like Simon he now enjoys the freedom that only a swimming pool can give him.
These are just two of the many stories I come across every day in the pool, and what they have in common is the joy of experiencing the water as a gratifying form of new-found independence.
It is worth pointing out that swimming is the most versatile and popular of all the sports practised by disabled athletes, with a growing number of participants.
The reasons can be traced…
