Italy’s 57-year-old wheelchair curler Egidio Marchese, a unique winter sports player from the south, believes he may win a medal at the Milano Cortina Paralympics in March.

Born in a small village 800 metres above sea level in the Sila highlands of Calabria’s far south, he migrated to northern Italy at the age of 16 to find work.

He first washed dishes and worked as a server near Lake Garda in Trentino, then traveled to Valle d’Aosta, an Alpine region on Italy’s northwestern border, where he worked in construction before marrying and settling.

“I am from a fairly normal southern household. My father was a miner, and my mother was a homemaker. Marchese told, “I had to choose between studying and making money. I chose the latter.”

He maintains his Calabrian dialect and visits his mother and family in the south twice a year.”My attachment to Calabria is strong, but I had to leave to make a living,” he explained.

The accident changed his life.

His life altered on January 10, 1997, when he was paralyzed in a vehicle accident. He took a seven-year hiatus from employment to marry and have two children.I asked my girlfriend if she was comfortable being with someone in a wheelchair, and she answered, “I loved you before, and I love you even more now,” he stated.

In 1999, a friend from the Paralympic Federation asked him if he wanted to help develop a wheelchair curling team for the Turin 2006 Paralympic Winter Games, which marked the squad’s first big worldwide competition.

He recalls training on an ice rink in Courmayeur, northern Italy. Following their debut in Turin, Italy’s wheelchair curling team qualified for the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010, where they finished fifth, their highest Paralympic performance to date.

The Milano Cortina Olympic Games, which begin on February 6, will put Italy at the center of the winter sports globe. Marchese will compete in the Paralympics, which take place from March 6 to March 15.

At Milano Cortina, the sport will feature two medal events: the mixed team competition, which Marchese will skip, and the mixed doubles competition, which will be put on the program for the first time.

Marchese stated that the team is practicing hard and hopes to win a medal following excellent performances in recent events. He stated that strong competitors like China and Canada may face challenges this year.The host country is automatically qualified for the Cortina event, but we also qualified based on sporting merit, earning enough points in international tournaments in the three years preceding up to the Games,” he explained.A medal is not out of the question for us. “We never stop dreaming,” he explained.