WEBVTT

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Well, good evening.

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I'm a sportsman: I practiced swimming, 
athletics, high jump,

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I played basketball, 
I play soccer with my friends --

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used to play soccer with my friends --

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And today I play rugby.

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I've played rugby for a long time now.

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You've noticed the crutch, surely.

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And you've seen I walk with a kind of limp.

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But don't be mistaken.

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I'm not injured.

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It is a prosthetic limb that has helped me 
walk since quite a while already.

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I was born with a congenital malformation.

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Congenital means it has nothing to do 
with genetics,

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that neither my dad is to blame,

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nor did my mom smoke, drink alcohol 
while she was pregnant.

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Congenital is a medical term 
for what is fortuitous.

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It's nobody's fault.

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My congenital malformation is expressed

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in the size of my left femur

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and the position on which my foot 
came out of the factory.

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I have a normal femur,

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and a left femur the size of a chicken's.

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And my foot came out pointing backwards.

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Well, I was born – obviously different – 
and doctors turned up

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telling my mom I wouldn't be able to walk,

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that I would be confined to a wheelchair 
for the rest of my life.

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And well, an endless bunch 
of other Greek tragedies

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that, of course, as first-time parents 
they were, scared them quite a lot.

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Luckily there came a doctor that told them 
something pretty simple:

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"The only one who will show you 
what this boy can

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or cannot do is Nicolas" - me.

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Luckily they followed this piece of advice 
and decided to have their perfect family,

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in some way, with their firstborn,

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and carry on with it like anyone would.

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Then, I learned, like we all learned,

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like all of you also learned, 
how to stand up when --

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How do you say? - my senses, my instinct, 
asked me to stand up.

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I wanted to take my first step 
when my instincts told me

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I should take my first step.

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In my case it was a hop.

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Well, and rugby, why rugby?

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My dad is a coach.

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Then, since I was young 
I used to go watch his practices.

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I had contact with the players, 
even since I was a child.

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And I carried a normal life.

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By normal, I mean, I walked with 
a prosthesis from an early stage.

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Since I was two, or one and a half, 
when you start walking.

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I rode a bike, like anyone does --
with a prosthesis.

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And then came the moment to move on,

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of undertaking common activities 
with my friends, whom I know from school.

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And at age six my life ceased to be normal.

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Because instead of celebrating a birthday,

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going to a soccer game and stuff, 
with the birthday bag,

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I had to be in the operating room because 
they wanted to see the chances

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of stretching my leg.

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They had decided that, even though 
they couldn't practice surgery on me

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when I was born

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as the bones were still 
not properly formed,

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they could do it at that age.

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They opened, they looked, 
and they were wrong.

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My bones weren't developed enough 
to be able to do it.

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We had to wait another year.

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So, with recovery and stuff, 
we waited until the following year.

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The following year they decided 
it was possible, and they placed

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an intramedullary rod on me 
as the first phase of these operations:

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joining the femur to the hip.

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Obviously, the magic didn't happen.

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The leg didn't miraculously grow.

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And after eleven months of recovery

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and a couple more years, 
I was operated again.

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¿What for?

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To start turning my foot.

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Then, they thought, turning the foot that --
remember it was grown this way --

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would later get to be in this way, 
and then grow the leg longer.

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They could only reach here; bones can't be 
that much stretched on a single operation.

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And well, it's obviously 
very frustrating to be 9

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and not doing the normal things 
the way I used to.

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Things like athletics, 
things like swimming,

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things like playing a soccer match 
with my friends.

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For that time, my friends 
were already playing rugby.

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Rugby, which you already know 
how much it means to me,

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or you probably understand somehow...

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And I wasn't being able to go 
into the field with them.

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One further frustration.

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Well, not much time passed 
before I got out of bed,

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I left the wheelchair, 
stopped using crutches

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and could start wearing 
the prosthesis again,

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and I started trying to train 
with my friends.

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"No, no way" - kept telling me 
the doctors and my parents.

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"Why? For what reason?"

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"You've just been operated. What if what 
was done to you breaks down the operation,

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which was so expensive, the time that 
cost you to recover and all, and, moreover,

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if you break your good leg, 
then we are screwed!"

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Which is true.

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But it was a risk I was willing to run.

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But my parents weren't.

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And my doctors, even less.

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So I had to opt for 
the less decorous way out

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which is "sneaking" out from home, 
to say it some way, to go training.

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"What a diligent boy!

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With just one leg he has to sneak out 
from home to go training."

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Well, the excuse was: "I'm going 
to study to one of my friend's,"

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"I've got a birthday," "I'm going to study 
to some other of my friend's home,"

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"I'm going studying," "I'm going studying,"

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"I'm going studying," "I'm going studying," 
"I'm going studying."

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You see, it's 30 classmates.

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They repeated in many opportunities.

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And I wasn't doing that well at school.

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So there was something I was doing wrong.

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Either I was studying like crap, 
or I wasn't learning anything.

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So, of course, my dad, neither slow nor lazy, realized

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if I go away Tuesday and Thursday 
and the guys train Tuesday and Thursday...

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"This one's going training!"

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Then came the issue of the matches.

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Sure, every weekend 
I was at one of my friend's place.

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That's normal in a kid that is 
13, 12, 15 years old.

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Even older too, that we stayed

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for the weekend at our friend's.

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So the matches weren't the problem.

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The problem was training.

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Until, finally, there came a trainer 
that said to my old man:

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"I will help Nicolas"

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or "I want Nicolas to go into the field 
because he really enjoys it."

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And my old man, quite reluctantly, 
ended up giving his thumbs up.

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And then came my first official match.

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The goal, let's say.

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My summit.

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And I went in.

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Of course, with their words in my head,

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with ankle support, shin pads, knee pads, 
back brace, gloves, shoulder pads, helmet

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and of course gum shield.

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I was the Michelin dummy 
entering like that and hopping.

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Let's say I was crucified entering 
a field.

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As time went on, that fear --

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which, of course, wasn't mine 
but everybody else's --

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was gradually left aside and I could, 
or I can say, today I go in without anything.

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Not even bandaging myself.

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Because it's also better for me.

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I can run, or hop, faster.

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I had the chance to play rugby 
in the snow, for example.

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I was invited to play a match, 
not a charity match,

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but an exhibition, where 
we could play rugby in the snow.

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I enjoyed it a lot.

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I went to Europe for a while and played 
in a club in England.

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Getting to the club 
with school partners was something.

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Arriving to a club where I wasn't known 
was something completely different.

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I come into the locker room.

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"This is an Argentinean friend," 
says my English friend

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who I had met in a rugby trip 
I had already done to South Africa,

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I had gone to England, we went 
to Uruguay, Chile, and so on...

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all to play rugby.

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"He is a friend from Argentina 
who comes to play with us."

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One at the back says: "Oh, he's playing 
with crutches, ha, ha, ha."

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"Yeah, I'm playing with crutches," I say.

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Because there are situations 
in which you can explain

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all this I'm saying now,

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and situations where you can't.

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If I get into a taxi, for example, 
and the driver says, "Oh, soccer, right?"

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Well..."Yeah," what else could I say?

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"Nah, thing is I was born with a congenital 
malformation, the femur, the chicken..."

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No! So I said, "Yeah, yeah, 
I will go in with a crutch."

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Well. I go into the field, I start training

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and the guys realized 
I was just another guy.

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Just that, instead of running, I hopped.

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That was the only difference.

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Because my hands, I got them both.

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And rugby is played with the hands.

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So I had the chance to do that.

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I had the chance to play in the snow.

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I had the chance to play in the Netherlands,

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a place where rugby is, like here, 
an international championship

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with backgammon world cup.

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And the truth is, I really enjoyed 
those kind of situations.

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I went to the world cup in France, 
where I had the possibility to work.

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In the next world cup in New Zealand 
I will be participating.

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And I was awarded with a prize.

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The Spirit of Rugby, they called it.

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Rugby's FIFA, which is the IRB, 
gives me this award.

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The Spirit of Rugby, and of course, 
it produced quite a commotion

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in our small world of rugby.

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And when I came back to Argentina 
a few years later,

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the Buenos Aires Rugby Union

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bestows me with a honorary cap.

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A "cap" is a small hat given to certain 
players for representing something.

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I was representing Buenos Aires' 
rugby spirit.

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Same rugby they didn't let me take part 
a few years before.

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Not them, right?

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But the truth is the path I walked 
with this, I couldn't have imagined.

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My only goal was to go into a rugby field.

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It was going in with 14 other friends 
to defend my club's shirt,

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my school's too, and a lot of things 
came along.

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All just for a stubborn cripple 
who wanted to play rugby.

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So well, then what I can say to you --

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and I wouldn't want to be 
a fortune cookie or a candy with phrases,

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is that life is just 10 percent 
what happens to you,

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and 90 percent what you do with it.

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So, don't let anybody tell you 
that you can't do

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something you want to do.

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If you really want to do it,

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and are willing to give everything 
to achieve it, you will make it.

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You will be able to make it.

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That's it.

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(Applause)

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Matias Martin: Anyway, he summed it up 
because this is 12 minutes

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and some of the atrocities he told me once 
he came to the radio

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weren't told, like, for example, soccer 
is not the only thing you tell taxi drivers.

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Nicolas Pueta: Well, no, sometimes you 
have to make up more elaborated excuses --

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MM: For example?

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NP: Not only to taxi drivers. 
In a nightclub, e.g., you are dancing.

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You dance a little different.

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"Oh, what happened to you?"

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So there you pull out your guitar...

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Of course...

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"Well, what happens is I'm a surfer, 
so we were in South Africa,

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in Durban, a gorgeous city 
but with a very dangerous sea,

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and a shark came by and ate my leg."

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"Come on!"

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"I swear to god, a shark ate my leg!"

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"Come on!"

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"Alright, don't believe me, I 'll keep 
dancing. Anyway, it's the same for me

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whether this happened or something else, 
it's the same."

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"Did a shark really eat your leg?," 
and they start asking around.

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And by now my friends say yes to anything 
because they know that can happen,

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or that I got run over 
by a train or a car,

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or that I had a motor biking accident 
and other laughable situations.

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MM: Alright Nico, thank you very much. 
Nico Pueta.

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NP: Thank all of you.

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MM: Thank you.

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(Applause)