FOR TIME AND AGAINST TIME: THE PARADOX OF PARALYMPIC ATHLETES WITH DEGENERATIVE DISEASES

Abstract

This essay aims to understand how two Paralympic athletes with degenerative diseases – swimmer Susana Schnarndorf and Elizabeth Gomes, a practitioner of athletics – deal with the dichotomy of time provided by sport, a struggle “against” the clock to achieve high performance and “in favor” of extending one’s lifetime. Paradoxically, it presents speeches of Belgian sprinter Marieke Vervoort, who preferred to give up her time in life and competition. The methodology used was biographical narrative starting from an invitation for the athletes to tell their life stories, which result from narratives – elements of subjectivity – which address the social roles of these women not only as athletes but also as human beings, as they suffer from the condition of mortality and brief finitude marked by the disease. Approximation with literary characters is metaphor for the harshness of that glimmer between finitude and eternity.