Athletics: Gustavo Pereira has already made history but wants to raise the bar.

Gustavo Pereira was born deaf but never gave up on making himself heard. No Portuguese jumper has ever achieved the qualifying standards for an Olympic competition (for athletes with or without disabilities), and at 18 years old, he will be the first, at the Deaflympics in Tokyo, starting on the 15th. In July of last year, in Taipei, he won the first ever international medal for Portugal in the high jump: he became the under-20 world champion. And everything changed: “It gave me hope of achieving other things. For now I'm competing for the deaf, but I'm going to try to compete with the best,” the so-called “normal” athletes, he admitted to DIÁRIO AS BEIRAS.

Being the first Olympic participant in the high jump is a responsibility, but it doesn't bring pressure. “There are situations where someone has to be the first to break through the barrier. And I'm happy if that motivates more deaf people to compete. But if I wasn't the first, it would be someone else, and what I want isn't just to be first. It's to be the best,” she emphasizes.

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