He is a bodybuilder, an accident left him in a wheelchair, fell in love with his caregiver and returned to racing: “You can get out”

Leonel Martin Rodriguez Pardini He is 42 years old, he is from La Plata and his life has always been linked to sport. She prepares to compete on Sunday 25 September at Excalibur, a regional bodybuilding and fitness tournament.

His voice rings strong and determined on the other end of the phone. Consistency, work and the desire to always be number one have led him to stand out in all the sports in which he has ventured. But his life story, and the message he seeks to spread, is perhaps far more important than any podium an athlete aspires to..

“Unlimited. No excuses”, are the legends that his logo has engraved, in addition to his name and a drawing of him in a wheelchair showing his muscles in the central part. The logo defines its essence.

In dialogue with Clarione, the bodybuilder from La Plata tells the sensations of his “set-up” in the last phase of his training to present himself at the Excalibur, in the wheelchair category. Leonel has to consume more calories than he eats before going on stage and, not being able to use the bicycle, he has prepared a punching bag that allows him to carry out cardiovascular exercises.

“I’ve been doing extreme sports since I was four. I have always scratched the door of success in various sports“, he says. And he remembers his beginnings:” When I was very young I did physical skills, now it is called artistic gymnastics. I was the only man who made skills in all of La Plata. Imagine what I went through, what everyone yelled at me when I went to train. After two or three years, a coach arrived who trained me for two months and took me to compete. I put 120 percent of me into it, like everything I do. After becoming provincial champions, we decided to focus on national ones ”.

An accident in a competition left him unconscious, but without serious consequences. Leonel was eleven and had to leave gymnastics on medical advice. So he decided to devote himself to martial arts and began studying Wushu (Chinese traditional martial arts) in the Wu Hsing Chuan traditional school in La Plata.

“I started and I began to give one hundred and twenty percent and in three or four years I already knew all the forms, styles, weapons. And I ranked third in America in terms of combat and forms. At that time I was studying Physical Education Teacher Training and when the opportunity to travel to China presented itself, I had to talk to my father about it because it was very difficult economically. I lived by working and studying ”, he reflects.

“I did the industrial high school in double shift, I graduated electromechanical expert. I did it all morning, went home to eat and studied all afternoon too. Then he attended an electromechanics course and went out at midnight to train with traditional methods. All this with fifteen years, “he adds, detailing his routine with total clarity.

– Did you go to China to represent the country?

-No. Look … My teacher asked the principal to authorize me to skip school for almost a month to represent the country at the World Cup. And along the way we took advantage and brought a lot of knowledge from our headquarters in China. A unique opportunity. Up to a month before the trip we organized an exhibition and a fight. When we started fighting the other instructor started as if to kill me. He took my shaft off, I double kicked, landed badly and broke both menisci and cut my ligament. And in my place this guy went to China and I stayed here. That’s why I tell you I’ve always scratched the door of success.

-And what happened next?

I had surgery and my knee didn’t fit. I went back to trading for the second time and more or less it was fine. When I wanted to train again I went to the venue and they treated me as if I were someone they were seeing for the first time. I felt so bad, after giving so much, that I walked out the door and vowed never to come back.. I came out very angry. I still have the Chinese clothes in storage.

When did bodybuilding come into your life?

-Because I had to start rehabilitation after the two operations. And there, while training, I gossiped about cars. So I took the opportunity to train my arms a little, then my legs … And little by little I started to get passionate about bodybuilding. He would be 24 more or less.

-And when did you start competing?

-One day during training I met Carlos Castro. He was at Los Cedros Gymnasium. Shortly after I met him, she opened his gym and I worked with him for many years. I consider myself a Castro Team athlete. He is my great mentor. I started with him. At my first competition, in 2003, I was posing and he was already next to me.

-What was your goal?

I’ve always wanted to be the best in the world. And he did everything for it. Because I had the great support of my friend who told me that I had a privileged physique and good genetics and also great behavior.

The accident that marked him forever

Leonel’s life was torn between his work and his demanding training as a highly competitive bodybuilder. His passion has always been the irons: those of the gym and those of the engines.

“On Saturday I went out on a motorcycle, I like the adrenaline”, he confesses to this reporter. In one of the “escapes” an event occurred that changed his life forever.

Leonel was riding at high speed on his Yamaha YZF-R1 motorcycle with his former partner, from La Plata to the outskirts of Chascomús. When cornering, he had an accident that pulverized his spine and left him with no mobility in his legs. His girlfriend didn’t take much risk. “After that moment, my life changed 180 degrees forever,” she says.

The man from La Plata remembers the difficult moments of hospitalization and convalescence: the surgery, performed by the neurosurgeon Dr. Humberto Perata, lasted nine hours and the rehabilitation lasted seven long months. He did not discover that he had permanently lost the mobility of his two legs until he entered the rehabilitation center. The neurosurgeon confirmed this in a meeting with four words: “There are very few possibilities.”

Sport to be reborn

Leonel began a very important physical and psychological recovery process that took his time. He went to live in his grandmother’s house where he found love and support. “One day I was watching Olympia on television and the first professional wheelchair bodybuilding tournament was taking place,” he recalls on the other end of the phone.

“I looked at the eight who competed and they were half of what I was. And I said to myself ‘I have to be there, what am I doing wasting my time here’ ”, she confesses. That day at his grandmother’s house, Leonel felt something inside him that pushed him to go on following his passion.. That TV show was the stimulus to go back to doing what he loved despite the problems his life presented to him at that moment.

-What was your start in wheelchair bodybuilding like?

-I spoke to my coach Carlos Castro and told him that I wanted to return and that all my retirement would go to the diet and supplementation I need to train. I then communicated with the federation so that they knew that I would show up at all the tournaments they had. And from that moment on, I never stopped. The first race I did was here in La Plata, organized by Osmar Portilla, in 2019. After that I was champion of Buenos Aires. Then, due to a health problem, I was unemployed for a while and couldn’t compete.

-Who accompanies you on this journey?

-My family. Especially my wife, Cinthia Soledad Cardelini, who accompanies me in tournaments and on a daily basis. She photographs me, films me, prepares my meals. I am madly in love. I was a narcissist, self-centered, perfectionist, metrosexual. Everything. And I’ve had many women and girlfriends. But since I met her, everything has changed. After the accident and a toxic relationship, I thought about being alone forever. But then a caregiver appeared to wash me, she was with me, she accompanied me. I started getting along so well with her that one day I realized things were happening to me. I told him ‘let’s try’. And she did very well for us. Now I am the father of four boys, one of blood and three of heart.

-What is your next goal?

-First I point out what I have in front of me: the Excalibur, which will be next weekend. Competition on Sunday 25 September. It is a regional tournament. I focused on this competition because it is a tournament I have never participated in. And the sword they give as a prize has always caught my attention. I’m a fan of Viking culture, that’s why. I proposed it and started working to get there.

What would you say to someone in the same situation as you?

-What I want most when a note comes out is that there is a message. Because I have been on vacation on the Amalfi Coast for a long time, I travel, I go here and there … And in these six years I have not come across a single person of my healthy age in a wheelchair. So where am I? They are all in bed, depressed. And I want this note to be an emotional boost for all those people and say ‘Come on, what are you doing there? Move!’ You can do basketball, soccer, paddle tennis, rowing, table tennis. There are many things … In Argentina we have an adapted tennis champion (Gustavo Fernández) and an adapted rowing champion (Brenda Sardón). My goal is to reach at least one person. I have no intention of changing the world. If any one reads this and says’ Look at this boy, he has spent a thousand and one. He almost died. Yet he gets up at six in the morning to take the children to school and goes on ». To be clear. There is life, there is happiness, after a spinal cord injury. Nothing happens. You can go on. And here’s the proof. My logo is very clear, it says very big ‘No limits. Without excuses’.