Paralympian loses medals and equipment in Brazilian floods but is improvising to qualify for Paris

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) — Vanderson Chaves has faced many challenges in more than a decade as a Paralympic fencer, but none as fearsome as the massive floods in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.

The waters washed away his equipment, dozens of medals, his passport — and might have even thwarted his chances of reaching the Paris Games in September.

Chaves’ ground-floor apartment, ideal for his wheelchair, lies in an elevated area of state capital Porto Alegre. Still, that didn’t spare him from becoming one of the 230,000 people displaced by the floodwaters.

Days later, his home remains submerged, his few remaining belongings fit in a car, and it’s affecting his mental health ahead of two key competitions next week for him to secure his Paralympics berth.

“There’s no way this wouldn’t affect me. To compete and to train well, you need to be well psychologically. And I’m not,” Chaves told The Associated Press at the Gremio Nautico Uniao, a club that has been turned into shelter for about 300 people since the floods began. “I come from an impoverished area of Porto Alegre. Everything for me is more difficult to achieve. I am Black, I am disabled. And now this.”