"There is no sports history in starting to swim, it has more to do with the disability and this issue of "she won't be able to. " A doctor told my parents that they had to accept that the baby is going to be dependent on someone all her life", Daniela said in an interview with ESPN. Nothing could be further from the bright future that awaited her.
Her relationship with swimming begins at the age of five, although she went through all possible sports. She stayed in the water. From a very young age, she had to leave her home to find better training and competition conditions, which made Daniela, with an optimistic and adventurous personality, an extremely independent girl. A decision that led her, over the years and adding effort and hours in the pool, to be 6 times Parapan American champion, to play three Paralympic Games (Tokyo will be her fourth consecutive) and to stay with the 2017 world title in the 100 meters chest S9. In Parapan American Games, her experience is unbeatable, full of emotions and adventures.
“Lima 2019 was super special because it was my fourth Parapan American Games. That the team is so big and there are so many kids debuting made me nostalgic for the whole journey in my career. I feel a bit 'old'”, said Giménez after shining in the last Parapan American Games with two gold medals (200 meters combined and 100 meters chest S9) and three silver (100 meters butterfly and 50 and 100 meters free S9) .
When the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games were postponed, Daniela made it clear that it was the right decision. And she continued her quarantine training until she was able to return to the pools. But at 28 years old, swimming since the age of 5, she announced that she is already analyzing her retirement from the activity and organizing her post-sport life, and that she wants to give talks, organize events and be able to transmit all her experience within the sport, with seminars and congresses.
“Although I know that I still have a couple more years of career left, I don't know if I'm going to make it to the Paralympic Games in Paris 2024. Today I look at Tokyo as my last big sporting event. So I see with good eyes that a year has been postponed, and to be able to arrive in the conditions I want for what may be my last Paralympic event”, Daniela confessed last year to the digital medium Diarionorte.
Daniela has been the inspiration for the Argentine Para Swimming for 15 years. She has obtained all the medals and recognitions. She has traveled much of the world. Sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied. The only thing that she did not fulfill were the predictions of total dependence of that doctor who thought that the lack of a hand was a life sentence.
