Journey of recovery for refugee Paralympic fencer

Some of Italy’s greatest athletes have trained at this gym belonging to the State Police’s Athletics Department, including the national Paralympic fencing star Bebe Vio. Amelio is hoping to take his place among them when he competes at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games this week.   

“I think I’m going to make it,” he says. “I’m going to get the Paralympic medal.” 

Becoming a role model 

Amelio arrived at Rome Airport in the middle of the night two years ago, after being forced to flee his country. He knew no one and had nowhere to go, but he was determined not to give up on the sport that had helped him recover from one of the most difficult periods of his life.  

His mother had worked hard to ensure he and his five brothers and sisters could go to school and have a better life, but she died when Amelio was just 16. In the years after losing her, Amelio tried to pursue the better life she had dreamed of for him, but the situation in his country was difficult and his plans came to a halt when he suffered a car accident and was paralyzed from the waist down.  

He spent the next four years in hospital, during which time his family gradually stopped visiting him until he lost contact with them entirely. “I pretended not to care, but it hurt deep down inside. At this time, I found faith in God, and this is what has kept me going,” Amelio recalls.   

After being released from the hospital and finishing his rehabilitation, he visited a gym and stumbled across a fencing match. He decided to try the sport himself and when he won the first match he ever played, he took it as a sign he needed to persevere. “From the very first day I connected with this beautiful sport, I was hooked.”  

Amelio realized the power of sports and was determined to use it to help other young people like him by reaching the highest level possible in fencing and becoming a role model. “I was planning on writing a book about my story, but then I thought, ’Why should other people read it? Only because I am paralyzed?’ I needed a better reason for people to listen to what I had to say.”  

Hard work pays off 

In Rome, he applied for asylum and spent six months staying in a shelter for the homeless before he started training with Daniele Pantoni, a coach at Italy’s State Police Athletics Department.  

“My life changed. The coach and the other athletes became my family. Even when everything else outside was not going well, I would go to the training centre, and I was happy,” he says.   

Reaching the gym where he trains requires over an hour-long commute each way, using public transport that is not always equipped for people with disabilities. “Sometimes the bus will have a ramp for the wheelchair, but most often it doesn’t. I switch to the metro, and my stop does not have a working elevator, so I just get on the escalator and hold tight,” he says. “It’s not easy, but if you want something very much, then nothing can stop you.”  

In May, his hard work paid off when he won the gold medal at the Italian Paralympic Wheelchair Fencing tournament. Shortly afterwards, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) announced that Amelio had qualified to compete as part of the eight-strong Refugee Paralympic Team at the Paris 2024 Games. Building on the historic success of the Refugee Olympic Team, they have already secured two medals while representing the hopes and dreams of 120 million forcibly displaced people around the world, including an estimated 18 million with disabilities. 

“Having a refugee team is a very nice thing because it allows us to feel more human,” says Amelio. “You really feel like you are part of a community, and I am proud to be among them.”  

Amelio’s message to other refugees is clear: “You can do it. If I did it, even without the right conditions or even legs, you can do it more than I did.”