By Dan Plouffe
There were moments before, during and after the Paralympic Games that felt nothing like a game at all for Bianca Borgella.
The stress leading up to the start of the 100-metre final at her first Paralympics was unlike any other the 21-year-old Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club athlete had ever experienced in her career.
“That was definitely one of the scariest feelings of my life,” Borgella recounted in an interview after participating in the OSEG Foundation’s Sports Day the Girls’ Way event on Monday at TD Place.
“I wanted to turn back. Even before we got onto the line, when they introduced us, we had to walk out in front of the crowd and I did not want to walk out,” recalled the sprinter who competes in the T13 category for athletes with visual impairments. “When I went on the line, I did a big gulp, a gigantic gulp. I was like, ‘I’m so nervous I’m going to puke. I don’t like this feeling. Why is everyone staring at me?’ It’s really stressful.
“There are people who are really in the zone and can just close that all out. I cannot. I’m always looking around, I’m scared, and then I get super sweaty, and then I get really tired before the race even begins.
“But then I think what kind of pushed me was that the crowd was screaming and I was like, maybe let me feed off of this. I was told from a coach, Glenroy (Gilbert), going in that I should feed off the energy from the crowd, so that’s kind of what I did. When the starter said, ‘on your marks,’ I feel like that’s when I finally calmed down and entered my zone and none of that mattered… Until I fell.”
Borgella had been battling a hamstring injury in the lead-up to the Paralympics, although she made it through her semi-final heat earlier the same day on Sept. 3 unscathed. But just before the championship race, her hamstring started aching.
And after blasting out of the blocks and finding herself in the top-four a few strides in, she crumpled to the ground clutching her leg around the 30-metre mark, with what proved to be a grade 3 muscle tear.
Suddenly Borgella felt all eyes on her again in her most heartbreaking moment.
“I heard the crowd kind of gasp: ‘Ooh.’ They made a sound like, ‘Oh no, what’s going to happen now?’ And then it went silent for awhile and eventually everyone started cheering and I was like, ‘OK, now I have to finish this,’” detailed Borgella, who got back on her feet and hobbled to the line in 25.11 seconds (her personal-best is 11.92).
Borgella knew going into the final that there was a possibility her race could end the way it did, but she nonetheless felt crushed.
“It’s still really disappointing. I was really hoping that I maybe could have potentially medaled,” indicated the winner of 100 m bronze and 200 m silver medals at the 2023 world para athletics championships. “I also knew deep down that I hadn’t ran 100%, and in the final I got out a lot harder than when I did in the semis. That was a little risky on my part, but I really wanted that medal. So when I did pull [my hamstring], I was not too surprised. It was painful, but I was not surprised.”
Post-Games blues strike first-time Paralympian
The days and weeks after the Paralympics weren’t terribly enjoyable for Borgella either. On top of the disappointing end and a significant injury to deal with, she also felt the extreme letdown that many athletes experience when the moment they’d worked so hard towards for so long has passed.
“I’m gonna be really honest, I definitely had the post-Paralympic/Olympic depression. It is definitely a tough one. I did not believe it (existed) at first, until now,” stated Borgella, who got to the point where she felt like she wanted to retire, but ultimately her internal fire to want to be the best prevailed.
“I thought about it again, and I was like, I can’t just end my career like that,” she explained. “I don’t want that to happen again. There’s always the fear of, ‘what if it does happen again, if you do get injured before a big competition, and the same results keep happening?’
“But then I’m like, you know what? I can’t give up. I’m still young. My hamstring did heal pretty fast. I feel like I just had to go back and redeem myself and get back the medal that I was supposed to get. That’s kind of what got me out of that dark space. I was able to talk myself out of it.
“And I’ve had really great friends and my family, being like, ‘You know Bianca, at the moment, we understand why you’re upset and you have every right to be sad. You went in with an injury and you came back with more of an injury, so you have every right to be upset about it. But don’t let that stop you. Don’t let that weigh you down, because you are fast, you do have the talent, so you gotta keep going.’”
Borgella also drew another jolt of energy from the young participants during her appearance at Sports Day the Girls’ Way.
Borgella was one of the star attractions at the event that seeks to fuel girls’ ongoing participation in sport, and she shared her journey with the 800+ young members of the audience during a panel discussion to finish the day.
“The crowd was amazing and really lively,” highlighted Borgella, who got a giant cheer from the girls when she said Simone Biles was a role model she looked up to.
“Definitely talking about the experience, I got a bit emotional. My voice started cracking, because the feeling still lingers.
“But I feel like coming out and talking about it, and just showing them that coming back from everything and pushing through is really important.
“I feel like speaking about my experience was very important to me, but also to them in a way, so they can know that there are people who go through struggles and we’re not just Superman or Superwoman.
“And I feel like it’s also kind of like therapy to me to speak out about it, and kind of get that feeling out, like, ‘Ya, it happened, but I’m still coming back.’”
The Sports Day event was one of her first times Borgella spoke to a large audience while being recognized as a role model and source of inspiration for young girls.
“This was different. This is definitely not running. I have to talk about myself, which is really nerve-wracking,” smiled the graduate of St. Francis-Xavier Catholic High School in Hammond who only jumped into true competitive track three years ago.
“I was really scared. I’m not a fan of public speaking, so honestly, coming up here was obviously a little bit of practice for me, but I felt comfortable over time because of the energy from the crowd.
“I think I kind of used my track skills as well, feeding off of the energy from the crowd. I feel like it gave me a lot more confidence to actually speak more, and wanting to talk more about my story.”
Borgella is currently focusing on rehabbing her injury – she’s now able to walk, bike and do slow jogs a month after the Paralympics – and building herself back up, while ensuring that she maintains mental health as a priority.
“This is when I get to relax and focus on going back to step one, and going back to my roots,” she noted. “From Paris, we learned that my running mechanics do need a lot of work. We’re going to really focus on the basics of running, until I run like a proper sprinter, and once those skills are attained, I’ll be able to be even faster and stronger.”
Indoor competitions are not going to be on Borgella’s schedule this winter. The Gee-Gees sprinter who studies biomedical science and neurology at the University of Ottawa will shift her usual fall “base-building season” to the wintertime, and then gear up for the next world championships, expected to take place in November 2025.
Borgella’s long-term goals in track are even bigger than capturing the medal she missed out on in Paris.
“I will try to make the Olympic and Paralympic Games – that is my goal, to make both teams,” she underlined. “I want to be a dual athlete. I want to show that para athletes can compete on both stages no matter what the disability is.”
~ SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM ~
We need your help to keep producing the local sports news you can’t find anywhere else!