Stories Lived

A Never-ending Dream

According to his disability, Edgaras has the sport class of S11. This means that only athletes who have severe vision impairment or, in other words, are completely blind belong to this classification. Competing against other athletes of this category, 17 year old Lithuanian accomplished three “A” level standards of Paralympics and because of that in the fall of 2016 in Rio de Janeiro Edgaras will compete in the freestyle swimming of 50 m, 100 m and 400 m distances. He is the only disabled swimmer in the national team of Lithuania of the 2016 Paralympics.

“Yes, I’m afraid. The fear makes me sick” says Edgaras Matakas and wipes small drops of chlorinated water off of his forehead. His muscular trainer Ramūnas Leonas laughs silently and pulls out a small chronometer from his pocket while keeping a close watch on his student. Edgaras is still sitting on the bench in the corner of the pool. With his eyes closed and his head down, he is nervously stroking through his hair. The most exciting moment of his training session is swimming for time before the Rio de Janeiro games and because of that he needs a little bit more time to set his mind. After hearing the order “Ready”, he slowly stands up on wet floor and, after his coach takes him by his elbow, Edgaras carefully walks towards the start position. From this moment on the swimmer is all by himself. Here he comes up on the edge of the platform and awaits for the whistle. After it he will bravely jump into a crystal clear water, however at the same time diving into a complete darkness. Edgaras isn’t able to see the world since he was 15 years old.

From a multimedia project (web series) WILL TO WIN: nanook.lt/en/will-to-win-hidden/

About the Filmmaker
Submitted by:

EDITED BY: Berta Tilmantaitė

FILMED BY:
Berta Tilmantaitė
Sofija Korf
Mindaugas Drigotas
Karolis Pilypas Liutkevičius

MUSIC and SOUND DESIGN:
Martynas Gailius (Sodas Sounds)

Filmmaker Website:  http://www.nanook.lt