RISKALLA Rodolpho

Classification
GRADE IV (FEI, 18 Aug 2021)

Type of Impairment
Limb deficiency (chsa.com.br, 01 Jul 2016)

Origin of Impairment
Acquired (chsa.com.br, 01 Jul 2016)

Impairment Details
He contracted bacterial meningitis in 2015, having travelled to Brazil from France after his father passed away. The lower part of his legs, his right hand and two fingers on his left hand were amputated. "I was very sick. They put me in a coma so I could breathe, my heart and everything was shutting down. I was in the coma for almost three weeks. Somehow I managed to survive, they said probably because I was in good health and fit. But my hands and my legs, the extremities, suffered a lot. My [medical] insurance was in Europe, so Dior managed to fly me back, and I had the amputations in Paris." (paralympic.org, 03 May 2018; fei.org, 11 May 2020)

General
RETURN TO DRESSAGE
Previously an able-bodied dressage rider, he decided to retire from the sport in 2014 after disappointing results. He then was hired as a horse trainer in France and began working for luxury goods company Christian Dior. He returned to the sport in January 2016, just five months after undergoing surgery to amputate his lower limbs, with a borrowed horse. His motivation was to qualify for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and he was eventually selected to represent Brazil at the event. "It's important to have goals. I was dreaming of making the Olympic Games but then I said, 'Why not the Paralympics?' My mother told me, 'OK, the Paralympics, you have four years to do it,' and I told her, 'No, I want to go to the Paralympics this year'." (SportsDeskOnline, 10 Sep 2018; Canadian Horse Journal YouTube channel, 03 Aug 2016; parasapo.tokyo, 19 Feb 2020)

MOVE TO EUROPE
Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, he relocated to Europe as a teenager in order to advance his equestrian career. "I spent a few months with Mariette Witthages in Belgium, and I went to Germany when I was about 20 and spent two years with Norbert van Laak. Then I went back to Brazil for about five years before deciding to leave again for Europe so I would be close to horses and shows and training, and that brought me here [France] to work with Marina [Marina Caplain Saint Andre], who I already knew from when I was younger, for about two-and-a-half years as a manager and trainer before I started at Dior." (fei.org, 11 May 2020)

He became the first Brazilian Para dressage rider to win a medal at the World Equestrian Games [WEG] when he claimed silver in both the Grade IV individual and freestyle events at the 2018 Games in Tryon, NC, United States of America. (porforadaspistas.com.br, 19 Sep 2018; SportsDeskOnline, 05 Nov 2018)