EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A severe case of meningitis 20 years ago caused El Pasoan Juaisca Rodriguez her right arm and foot, and some fingers on her left hand. Today she is 48 years old and will represent her home country Venezuela at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.
“It’s been a mental journey. I didn’t want to race anymore after the amputations, I thought that my sports life was over. But you can’t deny what you are, your essence, and in my essence I am a sports person, a sports woman,” said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez said she’s the first Venezuelan woman ever to qualify for the games, and the first para-athlete from the country to qualify for the Para Triathlon event in the Paralympics.
The Para Triathlon is an endurance race consisting of a sprint that begins with a 750M swim, followed by a 20K bike ride, and concludes with a 5K run.
Rodriguez will compete in the PTS2 class for athletes with severe impairment.
She qualified to the Paralympics by earning points with her performances at World Triathlon Para Championships.
She placed second place at Taranta, Italy on June 8, and third at Vigo, Spain a week earlier.
Before arriving in the states, Rodriguez lived in Merida, Venezuela where she was a swimmer for the national team in Para Athletics, and came just short of qualifying to the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games.
Rodriguez will bear the yellow, blue and red colors of her home country’s flag, but said she also feels like she’s putting the Sun City on her shoulders.
“In some way I feel like I am representing El Paso. I have been getting so much support and so much love, almost like a family from my friends over there,” Rodriguez said.
She moved to the Borderland in 2017 in search for a better life and to advance her career as a para-athlete, where she would begin her change in discipline from swimming to triathlon.
Her current profession is as a translator in four languages: German, French, Spanish and English.
Rodriguez said she is still working to get her US citizenship, and would hope to represent Team USA in the future, where she’s spent most of her athletic career as a para triathlon athlete, but in another event.
“I have plans to switch to another discipline [in para-athletics], but I would love to [represent the USA] especially because I feel very thankful to the United States as my second home country, and because of the support I have been getting [here].” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez has been training at different facilities across Europe over the last month in preparation for the Paralympics and she is currently staying at the C.A.R. High-Performance Center up in the mountains Sierra Nevada, Spain.
Her participation in the Paris Paralympics will kick off on September 1 at midnight El Paso time.
Right after the Paralympics, Rodriguez will set her sights on competing at the 2024 World Triathlon Para Championships at Torremolinos, Spain in October.
To help support her in her journey after the Paralympics, you can find her GoFundMe Page here:
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