Sawt Falasteen - Carmona: actor, skateboarder, Paralympic history-maker

Carmona and his coach, Nuno 'Mancha' Marques, took time out of their schedule at the Paralympic Village in Cortina to tell AFP how the 28-year-old found his new passion: para snowboarding.

An unlikely vocation for someone that grew up in the Portuguese coastal resort of Cascais, Carmona said it was Mancha who convinced him to give snowboarding a try three years ago after seeing videos online of him skateboarding with his prosthetic leg.

"He saw me skateboarding and he said, 'let's give it a try. No promises, just let's see if it works out'. And it did," Carmona explained.

Mancha, who also coaches the Brazil snowboard team, said it was an "honour" to take Carmona from someone with no snow experience to becoming a Paralympian.

"It's been a journey from zero to here, both together, doing everything, coaching, board preparation," Mancha said.

"I'm super proud of him, I'm super proud of us as a team and I truly believe this is his first (Winter Games) of many."

Carmona, as the sole representative of his nation at the 2026 Games, was Portugal's very first flag-bearer at the opening ceremony of a Winter Paralympics.

And alongside him for the athletes parade last week at the Verona Arena was Mancha.

"I think it only makes sense being the two of us (at the ceremony) because it's been a double journey," Carmona said.

"He's been everything in this journey. So yeah, we attended the ceremony, it was really emotional.

"It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

In his sole event at the Games, Carmona finished 18th in the snowboard banked slalom LL2 event.

Mancha said he was "super proud of (Carmona's) progression" considering the total 90 days he has spent snowboarding are "maybe half of what all the other athletes do in a year".

- 'Part of the game' -

Carmona's life changed at the age of 23 when he lost the lower half of his left leg in a train accident. Prior to that his two principal loves in life were acting and skateboarding.

In the 2000s, Carmona gained notoriety as a cast member of popular Portuguese teen shows like Morangos com Acucar and Floribella, before progressing into cinema.

"Right now I'm not acting. I'm not doing anything. The last film I did was like three years ago," he said. "But yeah, it's still an open path in my life."

Carmona revealed the principal reason he has put acting to one side for the moment was to accommodate his blossoming snowboarding career.

"When the snowboarding got more serious, I had to make choices," he explained.

"If I have a schedule of competitions... I had to make a choice and I'm super happy with my choice.

"My life took me this, to this sports path and I think it's the right thing I'm doing."

If acting is on the backburner, Carmona still skates whenever he can, however.

But Carmona's Games were nearly over before they had even begun when he broke his foot skateboarding last May.

"When I broke my foot, I called Mancha and I was crying and I said, 'I'm sorry'," Carmona said.

And the tears were very much real as Mancha revealed Carmona told him he did not think he would be able to compete at the Paralympics.

"I think actually it was a very nice thing because he thought he was disappointing me as a coach," Mancha said.

"And I told him: 'Hey bro, this is just part of the game. Sometimes bad things happen, but I'm still believing that you will be in 2026 here in Milan-Cortina'."

G.AbuGhazaleh--SF-PST