Arnulfo Castorena takes long, confident strokes, pulling himself across the blue width of the pool with his arm. It’s another in an endless series of training days stretching back 17 years. Castorena hopes to break his own world record for the 50 meter breaststroke—56.27 seconds—in this coming Paralympic Games, to be held this August 29 to September 9 in London, after the Summer Olympic Games.
This will make the fourth Paralympic games for Castorena.
He was born in Guadalajara in 1978 without a left arm and with underdeveloped legs into the kind of environment where those things can destroy a life. Without a mother, and with a father who didn’t want anything to do with a son with a physical disability, Castorena bounced around between relatives, from Guadalajara to Mexico City and back again.
Maybe, though, it was better in the long run that most of his family left him out of their circle. He reflected, “I was growing up in a family with a lot of problems. Drug addiction … for me it was very sad to see my family being destroyed.”
Castorena managed to stay out of that, wanting to prove something different to his family. From this desire sprung his attraction to sports—at first basketball, then diving with some friends, which soon turned him toward swimming.
At 22, he made it to his first Paralympics in Sydney, where he won the gold medal in the 50-meter breaststroke competition, category SB2. (The two indicates the severity of the physical disability, 1 being the highest and 10 the lowest). “It was incredible,” he said, “because I never imagined I would go so far and represent my country in the Olympic games.”
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