#joint contractures
Lara Lima is an amazing 18 year old paralympic weightlifter from Uberlândia, a city in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
Lara has been a wheelchair user for all her life as she was born with both spina bifida myelomeningocele and arthrogryposis. Myelomeningocele is a condition in which there grows a malformation in the spine during pregnancy. This consequentially causes damage to various parts of the spinal column, including the spinal cord. As Lara’s spinal cord was completely severed, she never had any feeling in her legs and has been completely paralyzed from her waist down her entire life. Besides that, her legs couldn’t move around freely during her time in the womb. This resulted in arthrogryposis, meaning that most of the joints in Lara’s legs have stood in a completely fixed and often bent position for all her life.
Lara always had a very active and athletic character. During her time in primary school she started trying out different sports to find out what suited her best. She especially liked swimming and wheelchair dancing and decided to join a dance group and an athletic club to bring her game to a higher level.
As a child, Lara loved to walk on her hands or move around the house using only the strength of her arms. She also didn’t shy away from climbing the stairs at her friends’ houses and was even surprisingly good at it.
Things like these didn’t go unnoticed by the people around her and at the age of 10, a friend suggested her that she should try out the sport of powerlifting. While she really liked swimming and dancing, she immediately knew that powerlifting would become her ultimate passion!
At CDDU, the athletic club where she joined the powerlifting team, Lara still holds the record of youngest weightlifter to compete in an official tournament!
Lara made her international debut in 2017 and now competes in tournaments all over the world. In 2019, she won a silver medal at the junior competition of the World Championships in Dubai, UAE. In May this year, she booked her biggest success as of now by winning gold in the junior competition and bronze in the adult competition of the World Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Lara will also represent her country at the 2020 Paralympic Games which will start in just a few days!
Feel free to check out Lara’s Instagram page if you’d like to see more of her athletic endeavours!
Lara Lima♀️♥️ (@laralimahalter) • Instagram photos and videos
Raissa Rocha Machado is an amazing, 25 year old track and field athlete from Salvador, the capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia.
Raissa has been a wheelchair user for all her life because of Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita(AMC). This is a congenital condition which causes joint contractures, stiffness and muscle weakness in some or all of one’s limbs. Fortunately, only Raissa’s lower limbs were affected, albeit in a pretty serious manner. She has never been able to use her legs in any way and also has some slight malformations in both her feet.
In her early childhood, Raissa didn’t accept herself because of her condition and felt excluded from her classmates.
When Raissa was 11 years old, her mother and her teacher encouraged her to try out gymnastics and wheelchair dancing. At first, this was quite a challenge for her, but as time grew on, she started to like it more and more.
At the age of 13, Raissa started to practice athletics. This proved to be exactly what she wanted with her life. She even turned out to have a huge talent, especially for the javelin throw. Furthermore, her parents, teachers and classmates did a tremendous job in supporting her! She started to compete more and more in some smaller regional tournaments and at age 15, she played her first major tournament; the Brazilian Championships in São Paulo.
Raissa has booked some major successes in the previous years. In 2015, she won a bronze medal in the Parapan-American Games in Toronto. In 2016, she competed in the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and in 2019, she won the gold medal at the Parapan-American Games in Lima! She was also runner-up in the 2015 World Athletics Championship in Doha.
Now, Raissa has been selected to represent her country at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, which will start in just a few weeks. Good luck Raissa!
If you’d like, you can visit Raissa on Instagram or you can check out her Facebook page by clicking the link down below!
Junior França is an amazing 25 year old paralympic weightlifter from Brazil. Junior was born and raised in the city of Natal, in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte.
Junior has been a wheelchair user for all his life because of Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita(AMC). This is a congenital condition which causes joint contractures, stiffness and muscle weakness in some or all of one’s limbs. Fortunately, only Junior’s lower limbs were affected, albeit in a very serious way. Junior has never been able to use his legs in any way and because his knees and ankles have always stood in a completely fixed position, he has some slight deformations in both his legs. Moreover, his leg muscles eventually completely wasted away and the bones in his legs became severely weakened, a condition also known as muscular atrophy.
As Natal has always been poorly accessible, Junior’s youth often had its challenges. Public transportation wasn’t adjusted for wheelchair users, sidewalks were often tough to navigate and buildings only seldom were equipped with elevators. Frustrating as it sometimes was, the tough streets Junior conquered with his wheelchair and the stairs he regularly had to climb with only the use of his arms made his upper body unbelievably strong!
Junior started weightlifting at the age of 18 after being encouraged by a good friend and after only two years, he already represented Brazil in the Paralympic Games of 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. Now, his goal is set for getting some great results at the 2021 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, for which he has recently been selected!
Besides his athletic aspirations, Junior graduated from a degree in law school two years ago and last year, the love of his life and fellow paralympian Maria Clementino gave birth to a beautiful son!
If you’d like, you can follow Junior on Instagram or you can visit his official Facebook page by clicking the link down below!
