Loida Zabala is, without a doubt, the best Spanish Paralympic weightlifter in history. At 38 years old, the athlete from Extremadura has turned her career into an example of perseverance, self-improvement and competitive excellence. Twenty times Spanish champion, European champion in 2022, world bronze medalist and participant in five Paralympic Games, her name is engraved in the history of adapted sports.
Since October 2023, however, his life has been divided between two parallel struggles: sport and life. That month he was diagnosed with
A career marked by excellence
Before her diagnosis, Loida Zabala was already an international reference. Her career includes more than two decades competing at the highest level, with an unusual regularity in high performance sport. She has been present in the last five Paralympic Games, achieving a diploma in four of them, and has maintained an almost absolute hegemony at the national level.
Her title as European champion in 2022 consolidated an already brilliant career. However, what has happened since she began cancer treatment has surprised even those who know her best.
Cancer as a new rival
Since October 2023, Zabala has been living with incurable cancer. She herself has defined this period as a “competition for life”. Far from taking her away from the sport, the treatments have transformed her body and the way she competes. Before cancer, she competed in the under 50 kg category. Now she competes under 67, after medication caused fluid retention and an inevitable weight gain.
The physical impact was severe. After the first treatment, I could barely lift more than 40 kilos. Even so, the process was not an end point, but a new beginning. In 2025, Loida Zabala has beaten the Spanish record twice in her new category, to 105 kilograms. A figure that sums up the dimension of her competitive recovery. “There I saw everything very difficult, but in two years I have lifted more than in 19 years,” she reflects, as reported by MARCA.
Motivation from life
The key to this resurgence is not only in training. Zabala explained how the diagnosis has changed her way of understanding life and sport. “Cancer has given me a lot of motivation because I have greatly valued the fact that I am alive today, the opportunity to feel, to learn, to grow…”, she acknowledges.
That vital approach has translated directly into performance. “All that motivation on a daily basis has made me improve my record on a national and international level;
She has even developed personal strategies to combat the exhaustion generated by the treatments: “I have learned to ‘hack’ a little bit the cancer medication, which causes a lot of exhaustion. I have achieved this by walking with my dog and thus creating serotonin, training, generating endorphins, hugging the people I love to generate oxytocin… It is a way of ‘hacking’ the brain to keep it at its best”.
An uncertain future, but full of goals
Despite the medical uncertainty, Loida Zabala looks to the future with sporting ambition. The calendar does not stop and neither does she. In March, the European Championships will be held, an event in which she aspires to compete despite the difficulties. “I would like to revalidate the title of European champion that I achieved in 2022, although now I am not in the same situation or in the same weight category. The European Championships are in March. I don’t know if I’ll make it, but I’m going to give my all to be the best I can,” she says.
His big dream, however, is further away in time. The
A pact sealed with the oncologist
The relationship between sport and life reaches one of its most symbolic moments in the story of his conversation with his oncologist, Maru Olmedo, at La Paz Hospital in Madrid. After learning that his disease had no cure, Zabala decided to face reality head-on. “When I saw that there was no cure, I sat down with my oncologist alone and asked her, ‘How long do I have to live?'”
The answer was direct, although she prefers not to verbalize it out of respect for her mother. Her reaction, however, was immediate. “And I answered her: ‘Okay, my purpose then is to get to Los Angeles 2028, which would be my sixth Games.’ And we shook hands as if sealing a pact. She told me that for her part she would do everything possible. And well, that’s where we are,” she says with a smile.
The alarm that signals hope
Among the daily gestures that sum up her way of life is one that is especially symbolic. Zabala has an alarm set on his cell phone. “I have an alarm programmed, which is one of my dreams that I have left to fulfill, which is after Los Angeles 2028. A date when it is possible that I will no longer be alive. Statistically it’s impossible, but if I see that alarm, which is called ‘You’re still alive,’ well, I’m going to come here and celebrate with you.”
He talks about death naturally, but without losing his cheerfulness. In interviews he keeps smiling, even in the smallest details, such as wearing a Santa Claus Christmas hat to a photo shoot. His attitude is not an imposture: it is part of his way of resisting.
Sport as an emotional refuge
Sport remains her focus. “Being focused on the Games and sport has always helped me a lot. If you focus on what you really like, it’s as if the bad moments or difficult things accept themselves,” she explains. For
Her story is not one of early retirement or farewell. It is that of an athlete who continues to compete, lifting more weight than ever and looking to Los Angeles 2028 as a legitimate goal. In the midst of a battle against incurable cancer, Loida Zabala continues to prove that high performance can also be a way to hold on to life.
