The ceremony began with a presentation of the year by the vice-rector for the University Community, Belén Zárate, and a summary of the previous sports season from head of Sports Ernest Martínez.

The stage was then passed to Carla Casals, who spoke to the students about how she got started in swimming, how she reached the top by following her goals and how she dealt with adversity and failure. Though she never won an Olympic medal, Carla made it clear that the most important thing about her athletic career is the feeling of satisfaction of having done a good job, of having chased her dreams and made them a reality.

She also offered the students a few words of wisdom: “The important thing isn’t having a dream, it’s about what you’re willing to do to reach it”. Behind her is her participation in the Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Paralympic Games. Over the course of her competitive career, she earned 30 European and world medals and 9 Paralympic diplomas, as well as four world records in the 200 metres butterfly and numerous Spanish records in breaststroke, butterfly and medley.

She currently works as a personal coach and agent. In her talk, she gave the students tips on how to overcome adversity based on her own personal experience. 

>> Read the interview with Carla Casals on DobleCheck (in Spanish)