“It was a lesson that gave me mental strength, psychological strength. I think I have a second life and now I just have to enjoy it. I can’t make the mistakes of the past, when I thought I was indestructible.” Just as a before and after is being drawn for Diogo Matos Ribeiro in Portuguese swimming, the athlete himself also had a before and after defined by a red line drawn in 2021, when he suffered a serious motorcycle accident that put his still short career at risk. “Just a year ago I was in a hospital bed,” he recalled upon his arrival in Portugal after proclaiming himself three-time junior world champion in the competition held in Lima. The luggage stayed in Madrid, the medals went with him to Lisbon, the ambitions are increasingly focused on Paris, where he will have his first Olympic experience in 2024.
The descriptions of those who know him best almost always converge on the same points: a fun kid, who likes to get along with life, who had the normal excesses of any child. There was one certainty: he had great potential like other youngsters from Coimbra but with that basic principle that so often makes the difference of wanting to challenge oneself in the water. There was an uncertainty: how far all these features could take you. And that’s how he made his way since he started swimming at the age of four after losing his father (remembered with the star on the right shoulder) to gain greater ability to concentrate. He worked at the Fundação Beatriz Santos, Clube Náutico Académica and União de Coimbra until he signed for Benfica in 2021, as part of the Paris-24 project and in a context where he could work with the Brazilian coach Alberto Silva, or Albertinho, at the Center . of High Performance of Jamor.
It was also in that year that he had the accident that changed his life. Contusions all over his body, burns, a dislocated shoulder, a broken foot, the part of his right index finger that he lost but was later reconstructed without losing sensation. For a week he was hospitalized. For a month he was in bed. He got a different take on everything, starting with a recovery process where he was faithful to every step towards the goal of coming back even better. She did her good working at CAR with Albertinho and changing routines. The rest, among dozens of absolute and youth national records broken, is the story that even now began at just 17 years old: he became one of the four Portuguese swimmers to have won medals in senior European long pools along with Yokochi, Alexis Santos and Gabriel Lopez. (this one also in Rome-22), he won three gold medals in the junior world championships in Lima and even managed to break the world record for his age in the last event, the 50-meter butterfly.
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Source: Observadora
