Nelia Barbosa

Started: She took up the sport at age 12 in 2011 in Champigny-sur-Marne, France. (Athlete, 28 Aug 2024; leparisien.fr, 31 May 2019; diamonds-academy.fr, 2020) Reason: She was looking for a sport she could do outdoors near Paris, France, and discovered canoeing during a summer camp in Corsica. "It's a passion that I have had since age 12 when I discovered it on a holiday camp. I started with regional competitions. You have to get up early, and in the cold, and I almost gave up. After my amputation, it was suggested that I aim for the Paralympics and I went for it. In less than a year, I was winning open competitions and I was integrated into the French team. I love being in nature and outside. For me, canoe has become almost vital, I need to be outside, I need to be out on the water." (Athlete, 28 Aug 2024; francetvinfo.fr, 23 Dec 2023; onisep.fr, 08 Nov 2023; diamonds-academy.fr, 2020) Ambition: To win a gold medal at the 2024 and 2028 Paralympic Games. (onisep.fr, 08 Nov 2023) Awards: In 2021 she was named Knight of the National Order of Merit in France. (vousparmacif.macif.fr, 07 Jul 2023; ffck.org, 13 Sep 2021) Additional Info: AIMING TO BEAT THE BEST At the 2024 World Championships in Szeged, Hungary, she finished the women's KL3 200m A final in third place with a time of 47.15 seconds, behind two British paddlers, Hope Gordon [46.94s] and Laura Sugar [45.97s]. A year earlier, she finished second behind Sugar in the same event at the 2023 World Championships, and she also won silver behind Sugar at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. "To beat [Sugar] I have to be under 46 seconds at every race. She [Sugar] has showed that she can do that. My objective [for 2024], even in training, is to regularly finish in 45 seconds. I need to refine the few hundredths of a second that remain for me to grab. It's evolution, and evaluation. I'm training so that there will be no one in front of me in 2024." (valdemarne.fr, 2024; rmcsport.bfmtv.com, 27 Aug 2023) FROM PORTUGAL TO FRANCE She was born in Portugal to a French mother and a Guinean father, and in 2007 she and her family relocated to Sucy-en-Brie, France. "My father had a farm in Portugal where me and my sister Maeva could live surrounded by nature. At school it was very multicultural as I had friends from Japan, Germany and Morocco. When I was age eight my father lost his job and we all came to France." (vousparmacif.macif.fr, 07 Jul 2023; champigny94.fr, 01 Sep 2019)