FILE PHOTO: Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games - Swimming - Men's 50m Freestyle - S9 Final – Tokyo Aquatics Centre, Tokyo, Japan - August 29, 2021. Simone Barlaam of Italy reacts after winning gold REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo
MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's Simone Barlaam did not enjoy the COVID-delayed Tokyo Paralympics but is looking to have fun at this year's Games in Paris and improve on an already impressive record.
Barlaam, 24, is one of the world's top para swimming athletes and competes in the 100 metres backstroke, 100 butterfly plus the 50, 100 and 400 freestyle categories.
Last year he was named Best Male Summer Sports athlete by the International Paralympic Committee.
"My goal for Paris is to enjoy the Paralympics, obviously doing my best and trying to improve myself more and more," he told Reuters.
Barlaam said that, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his head "wasn't in a beautiful place" at the last Paralympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, where he won gold, two silvers and a bronze.
"I didn't like what I was doing, I got there almost disgusted with swimming, I wasn't happy with myself ... I didn't enjoy it much, so now I want to enjoy Paris, I want to enjoy every moment."
Born with a hip deformity, with his right leg shorter than his left, Barlaam got into swimming from an early age as it was the only sport he could practise safely with his condition.
"Besides, I've always liked the feeling of being in the water because it gives me that feeling of lightness, of being agile, of being graceful, which I don't often get on dry land because I also feel a bit awkward, clumsy," he said.
A professional since 2017, he dominated last year's World Para Swimming Championships in Manchester, winning all of his events with six golds and setting a world record for the men's 50 Freestyle S9 category, going under the 24 seconds barrier.
Barlaam is happy to be an inspiration for others.
"It's the most significant, the most important side of the coin, which you realise slowly, as you grow up ... that in the end you have an influence on people who you don't even know," he said.
Barlaam often gets messages on social media from children with disabilities or from their relatives.
"Thanks to my exploits, to the races they see on TV, they become more confident in their own means, they no longer hide their disability and indeed they begin to do sport ... that's the social change that the Paralympic movement aspires to bring about, even indirectly," he said.
The Paralympic Games run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8.
(Reporting by Claudia Greco and Alvise Armellini; Editing by Ken Ferris)
