At eighteen months, a life can change in an instant. Francesca Porcellato, born in Castelfranco Veneto on 5 September 1970, was hit by a truck, and the spinal cord injury left her paraplegic. From that day, her road has had wheels.
The wheelchair, which she received as a child, was not a limit for her but a tool of freedom: that is how she has described it herself. At 17 she took up athletics, and in 1988 she made her debut at the Paralympic Games in Seoul. Since then the “Flying Redhead”, a nickname she owes to her curly red hair and her speed, has raced from 100 metres to the marathon, and has won the New York, London, Boston and Paris marathons.
Then she changes road, more than once. She moves to Paralympic cross-country skiing and wins gold in the sprint at Vancouver 2010. She moves to handbike, the hand-powered cycling of para-cycling, category H3: in 2015, at the World Championships in Nottwil, she wins two titles, in the time trial and the road race; then two bronzes at Rio 2016 and a silver at Tokyo 2020. At Paris 2024 she is still competing. Sources give 14 or 15 Paralympic medals in total, across summer and winter editions: the count varies from source to source, but all agree on a career of more than thirty years.
What does this story teach us? There is no “right” discipline that she found once and for all. There is the ability to look for another road when the first one closes or wears out: from athletics to skiing, from skiing to cycling. Changing is not a failure and not a surrender: it is a way of continuing to run, with different tools.
A small exercise for this week: think of something you gave up because it “was no longer working”, and ask yourself which smaller version, suited to you, you could try again. You do not need a turning point: a first step is enough.
A note of rigour: this is a story told by journalistic and encyclopaedic sources, not by a scientific study; for that reason I chose not to give figures more precise than those on which the sources agree.
And you, which new road are you allowing yourself? Tell us in the comments: your story may give courage to someone else.
Sources
- Wikipedia (Italian), “Francesca Porcellato”, https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Porcellato (accessed 13/10/2026).
- Quotidiano.net, “Paralimpiadi: Francesca Porcellato, la ‘Rossa volante’ che balla da Seul 1988”.
- Disabili.com, “Tra sport e leggenda: la storia della Rossa volante Francesca Porcellato diventa un libro”.
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