"There are 24 hours in a day. I train for six of them and that's perfect, but then there are 18 hours left as a refugee," explained Amelio Castro, a Colombian Para fencer who will be competing for theRefugee Paralympic Team (EPR) at the Paris 2024 Games.

His life has been a race against time and you could say he has lived two lives in one. Now, thanks to fencing, he is living a very different life. At 32, he witnessed the murder of his mother when he was 16. At 20, in 2012, he was involved in a car accident that left him without the use of his legs.

To make matters worse, he fled Colombia due to threats and arrived in Rome in September 2022, where he has been living and developing as a fencer ever since.

"The beauty, the people, the human warmth," he told AFP on Tuesday. These are the things he loves about fencing. A sport he discovered in 2017. Castro is training for the B category foil. His immense challenges have been overcome, at least many of them, thanks to the support of many people, especially his coach Daniele Pantoni and the Italian team. He keeps in touch with many of his competitors by living in Rome.

"God's grace has allowed me to meet the right people," says the para-athlete, who met Daniel Pantoni in 2017 when Pantoni was in Cali for a fencing competition with the Italian team. In 2023, Castro decided to leave Colombia and travel to Italy. However, this decision came with its own difficulties: Living in Italy as a refugee and disabled person. "Being part of a refugee team, having to train with shortcomings because you lack the resources and the necessary conditions, is a great sacrifice," he told AFP.

Amelio Castro lives in a reception centre. He faces many difficulties due to the less-than-ideal conditions. Sleep is often hard to come by and attending training sessions is an ordeal. "It takes two hours to get to training by public transport. Sometimes there's a lift, sometimes not. Sometimes the bus helps, sometimes it doesn't," he said resignedly.

Pantoni has managed to arrange for him to train with Fiamme Oro, the Italian national police sports group. His current ambition is to win a Paralympic medal. He made his debut in May with a bronze medal in the men's B épée at the 2024 Wheelchair Fencing World Championships.

"For me, it is wonderful to represent so many millions of refugees. It is a great responsibility. To give a voice to those who have none," he said. On Tuesday, Castro was eliminated in the sabre competition. This does not affect him as it is not his main discipline. His moment will come this Friday in the men's individual épée.