“On TV they forgot that I’m missing a leg”

We met with Desirée Vila at the indoor athletics track of the CAR of Madridexactly the same place where We interviewed her for the first time eight years ago. recently arrived from her native Galicia. So, Desi wanted to break into Paralympic athletics. That summer he had already participated in his first European Championship in Berlin and dreamed of attending the Games. That’s why he had moved to the High Performance Center. He came from competing in acrobatic gymnastics and knew the way to succeed in elite sport. Discipline and effort were already part of his hallmarks.

Today, Vila is an icon of Spanish Paralympic sport. The European bronze medalist in the T63 long jump has transcended the sports field. On his social networks he has almost a million followers between Tik Tok and Instagram. He uses them to show his daily life and normalize disability. But also, in February the documentary ‘Want to live’ directed by El Langui –it is his first feature film as a director– and with Rodrigo Espinel as producer. In it They review Desi’s extraordinary life before and after the accident that changed everything.

“Sports took away my leg when I was 16, when I was practicing acrobatic gymnastics.”remember. On February 26, 2015, after doing a stunt, he landed badly with his right leg and he broke his tibia, fibula and popliteal arterywhich is responsible for blood irrigation. The traumatologist did not come to see her that night at the hospital and when he arrived the next day it was already very late, the leg was necrotic. ““In the ICU they told me that it had to be amputated to save my life.”remember. It was a medical negligence and they ended up agreeing with him at trial.

Sports took one of my legs when I was 16, when I was practicing acrobatic gymnastics.

Desirée Vila, athlete

“Filming the documentary has been an exercise in embracing vulnerability and understanding how my environment experienced it. At first I closed myself off a lot, I didn’t let anyone give me advice. The accident is not a topic that is talked about at family meals. The documentary has made me reconcile with that teenager who didn’t know how to handle it”, he acknowledges.

The documentary has made me reconcile with that teenager who did not know how to manage her disability

Desirée Vila, athlete

Disability on television

Because at 16 years old I had barely had any contact with disability. “You don’t see many young people who have it and It makes you understand that when it happens to you so young it is very dramatic and you fall a little into that poor thing and how unlucky I am!. It seems that a range of possibilities is closed to you because there are not so many references,” he reflects.

“I didn’t imagine that I was going to be on a television program, that they were going to make a documentary about my life or that I was going to go to the Paralympic Games. And in the end I went to two (diploma in long jump in Tokyo 2020 and ninth in Paris 2024). That is why it is important to be a speaker to show that anyone can achieve goals and even if it costs a little more for those of us with disabilities, we can also achieve them,” he says with conviction.

Vila has become a reference that is why they contacted her to participate in the TV show ‘Top Chef: Sweets and Celebrities’. She took it as another competition. “As an athlete, I’m going to die for everything I do. I wanted to do it perfect. Between the Masterclasses and what I practiced at home, now I’m a pastry chef,” she says, laughing.

The recordings were hard. They picked her up at 6:30 a.m. and she returned home around 7:00 p.m.. At that time he went to the CAR to train. But the effort has been worth it because His presence on television has served to end many prejudices. “It has also been very good for society to have a person with a disability, who also represents the values ​​of sport, in prime time on public television.

Having a person with a disability on prime time on public television is good for society

Desirée Vila, athlete

“My classmates forgot that I’m missing a leg. It made me laugh when they told me that. And that’s the important thing, that they see the person, that I’m like any otherand I was also quite good at it. Let the difference go unnoticed because it is not the main thing. Furthermore, cooking did not limit me at all,” he adds.

Sense of humor

Desi displayed his usual humor on the program. In the first one he triumphed with his tiramisu and called the dish ‘Get off to a good start’. Another day when they had to cook with tendons, they gave it the name ‘With one foot in the grave’ –in your case it is literal because He buried him after the amputation– and with the last dessert, with which she was eliminated in the fifth program, she told the judges: “You know which foot I limp on.”

With humor we remove a little of those prejudices

Desirée Vila, athlete

“With humor we remove a little of those prejudices and so the people who make decisions on TV are interested in us being there. Until now it seemed that there was no talk about us but the time has come. We represent millions of people. We also exist and we have to be on TV just like in any job,” he claims.

He also made jokes about his prosthesis. “It was brutal to suddenly see Belén Esteban playing minigolf with my prosthesis. We normalized it so much that they forgot about the disability,” he says.

It was brutal to see Belén Esteban playing minigolf with my prosthesis

Desirée Vila, athlete

Victim of sexist comments

The Galician athlete also He has used his networks to denounce sexist comments. “Where I have seen the most discrimination has been in them in relation to my body. When a video goes viral, four orangutans joke about the fact that I’m missing one leg, that they would give me three legs instead of four, etc It’s one thing for me to make humor with my body and another for someone who doesn’t know me to do it,” he says.

There are still sexist comments on the Internet; When you read them, it seems that we are still in the Paleolithic

Desirée Vila, athlete

A good part of those comments came when he starred in the Runners magazine cover. “It affected me quite a bit. If you were a boy, would you have received these types of comments? Surely not. There are still sexist comments. When you read them, it seems that we are still in the Paleolithic. The speaker I have has to be used for good things, but also to claim important things,” he says.

From the disappointment of Paris to the excitement of Los Angeles

In her Networks she also shows the hard daily life of an elite athlete. Desi, it’s over ninth in long jump at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Gamesshe came back from them so disappointed that He even considered quitting. “I came back wanting to retire. Not because of age or injuries, but because my head didn’t want to continue. “I was so bad, so disappointed with my performance…” she admits.

I came back from the Paris Games wanting to retire, I was very disappointed

Desirée Vila, athlete

The jumper He felt that the sport had not given him everything he deserved.that the reward for their efforts and sacrifices of the last cycle had not arrived. I needed a change, a new motivation to continue in the sporting elite. That is why he changed his training group at the CAR in Madrid, where he had been since 2018, for train in Guadalajara under the orders of Luis Felipe Méliz, former Olympic athlete.

“I needed something different, other stimuli. The move to Guadalajara has been the best decision I have made because it was that or leave it. I decided to give this cycle towards Los Angeles 2028 a chance and it is giving me a lot of joy. In my first year with Luis Felipe I made my personal best and Spanish record (4.56 meters)”, he explains.

Vila trains in the same group as the Spanish jumper of Cuban origin Lester Lescay, bronze in the European indoor last year. There is also a Brazilian athlete, another from Cyprus, a Cuban, an athlete from Peru… “My coach says we are the UN,” reveals between laughs. “I am super happy with my group. I needed to have a good time, enjoy the sport again because it’s already hard enough. and there is a lot of frustration. I don’t want to be bitter training, I want to be focused, working and with discipline, but also enjoying it,” she insists.

Every day he trains with his eyes set on Los Angeles 2028. “I don’t know if they will be my last Games because I will arrive at 30 years old, I will go with the goal of enjoying them. I had a terrible time in Paris and I don’t want to keep that memory. I don’t want to think about the Games and feel like crying. What I want from Los Angeles is to feel brave, competitive and not feel less than my rivals, because if I am there it is because I have earned it, I deserve it and because I am in the elite. I will go for everythingalthough anything can happen in the long jump,” he says.

Having changed the technique is going to give me a lot of joy.

Desirée Vila, athlete

Change in technique

This season he has decided, together with his coach, change jumping technique. “We have been brave to do something that no one in my category has ever done before and that is the ‘one and a half’ technique after the jump, which is how my able-bodied teammates jump. I said: ‘And why don’t we try?’” he reveals.

And she appears confident. “I have a lot of desire and a lot of faith in the competitions to come and although this year there is no European Championship, having changed the technique is going to give me a lot of joy“, she says convinced.