Elena Semechin, that remains to complete under her first name Kravtsov, required 3 efforts: after Rio and London, she ultimately won the Paralympics gold medal she had actually been wishing for inTokyo But after that came the shock: a mind lump! The truth that she is contending in Paris is absolutely nothing except a wonder.
Elena is being in the waiting space of Berlin’s Charit é with her spousePhilipp Semechin She has actually simply originated from an MRI. She is weary and on side at the exact same time. Philipp is holding her hand. The pair recognizes the scenario. Every 5 months Elena is infused with comparison tool, after that the assessment complies with – has the cancer cells returned?
After checking out the pictures, neurosurgeon Ran Xu brings the bright side: “Fortunately, the findings are stable.” And the pair takes a breath a sigh of alleviation. “It’s really very inspiring and impressive how you’re doing this. Really great,” highlights the medical professional. “I’m doing my best,” states the noticeably happy person.
Elena and her spouse, that is additionally her instructor, have actually been with a rollercoaster of feelings. But Elena is healthy and balanced and states with self-confidence: “Cancer chose the wrong person. Cancer didn’t manage to take control of my life.”
Only 2 percent left
The Kazakh citizen has actually needed to get rid of a variety of challenges in her life. In key institution, the household saw that the seven-year-old might not see correctly. Her vision after that progressively worn-out – the assaults were most regular and worst throughout the age of puberty. She had her last assault a couple of years earlier, and she approximates her vision to be at 2 percent: “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 really like the water whatsoever. She is definitely not a”water rat” “But I noticed that swimming is a gateway to the world for me.” Here she can confirm to everybody what she can do. For years she was just ever before informed what she could not do and what she would not have the ability to accomplish.
Krawzow explains herself as”a bit megalomaniac” She purposely does not utilize a walking stick. Otherwise it would certainly trouble her to constantly have something in her hand. The result is routine swellings and bumps. But this blowing assists her when swimming, due to the fact that she does not go very easy on herself there either.
“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 professional athlete from the Berlin swimming group, including: “But of course things go wrong sometimes. I’ve broken fingers and torn ligaments. That’s just part of it.”
Paralympic gold at the 3rd effort
Krawzow is a several globe and European champ. Her preferred occasion is the 100 m breaststroke. At her Paralympics launching in London in 2012, she missed out on the platform. In Rio in 2016, she currently took silver. Five years later on, as a result of the coronavirus, her desire for a gold medal became a reality in Tokyo.
I rely on Elena to do anything. She is so solid in her head. She can concentrate a lot on her objectives – in spite of having a great deal of various other points taking place that occupy not just her mentally yet additionally her time. I have actually never ever experienced anything like that prior to.
“When the games in Tokyo were over, I enjoyed it so much,” she remembers. But she was afflicted by frustrations that would not vanish. On the day of the MRI consultation, which was intended to obtain to the base of the discomfort, Elena and Philipp mosted likely to the jewelry expert to pick rings for their intended wedding event.
The medical diagnosis after that tore her “from cloud nine to the concrete floor. It was like an impact,” Elena explains. And her spouse 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 prior to mind surgical treatment
Elena intended to be solid, yet she additionally understood about 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 scenario had not been negative sufficient, the lump was scattered. It was difficult to inform what was the mind and what was the lump. “And if they cut just a millimeter off and chop something off, it could go completely wrong.”
The pair wed soon prior to the procedure. “It was important for me that I could say ” I do” myself in a reasonable state,” tensions Elena, including: “In retrospect, that may have been selfish. But everything went well.”
When she got up after the procedure, she was “totally dazed” and “extremely thirsty.” When a registered nurse informed her that she had not been permitted to consume alcohol anything yet, she merely talked to the following 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 procedure, she appeared at training with a bandaged head. “That was crazy. But that was the Elena I knew as a coach,” states Philipp, that led 2 lives in the weeks and months that complied with: As an instructor, it was a wonder what the swimmer can. “As a husband, what the coach asked of her was borderline.”
However, sporting activity offered the convalescent the assistance she required throughout radiation treatment and radiation. When she really felt negative, she intended to have the ability to at the very least criticize her physical issues on her swimming. And she is specific: “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 professional athlete to eruptive sprint specialist
But concern is constantly there: when she has specific sorts of frustrations, she has recalls to the moment prior to the procedure. She has actually also needed to sustain an anxiety attack. “I know that the cancer can come back. I always expect that everything in my life can change from zero to a hundred,” states Elena.
At the very least her training has actually transformed. Endurance utilized to be her best stamina. She when swam approximately 75 kilometers in a week’s training school, reports the instructor. After the procedure, it was an optimum of 45. Now she is functioning a lot more on her sprinting abilities. Explosiveness, power and optimal stamina are the primary emphasis.
Goal: To gold also quicker than in Tokyo
Her resurgence has actually currently been a success: in 2014 she won the 100 m breaststroke at thePara World Championships But that is insufficient for her: she has actually established herself the difficulty of winning Paralympic gold once again – and in a far better time than in Tokyo.
The state of mind in Paris needs to aid with this, after the corona unhappiness inJapan The 2024 Paralympics are intended to be”electrifying” They will most definitely be “very emotional” nevertheless the chaos of the previous couple of years.
