Arjola Dedaj was born in Tirana, Albania, in 1981. At age three, she suffered the symptoms of retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder that makes cells in the retina break down slowly over time, causing vision loss. In 1998, at the peak of the civil war, she emigrated to Italy.
Arjola lived in Milan and got in touch with blind baseball in 2005.
"At first, I wondered how blind people could play baseball," she told the Italian Baseball Softball Federation (FIBS) website in 2016.
It didn't take much time to fall in love with the game for her: "It is real baseball...it's dynamic...it's fun"
Dedaj participated in the first-ever WBSC Blind Baseball International Cup, playing for champions Italy.
"It was great," she told the WBSC. "Hopefully, you guys at the WBSC did much talking about this event."
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Dedaj starred in paralympic track and field. She earned a gold medal in the long jump at the London 2017 World Championship and finished sixth at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She also earned three silver and four bronze medals in the long jump and 100 meters at the European level.
"The main difference between blind baseball and track and field is that you don't need a guide in blind baseball. You actually run on your own."
Dutch player Lisa Kuppern said after the International Cup, "The freedom I feel when I'm able to run alone is amazing."
"This is how everybody feels after trying blind baseball," commented Dedaj. "In track and field, you need your guide, and your performance depends on your guide. Blind athletes deserve accessible sports, and blind baseball allows you to run independently, guided by a noise source."
WBSC: In the past, you said that you had the dream of demonstrating blind baseball at WBSC events.
Dedaj: "We went beyond that. We had our own WBSC event. My dream now would be having a blind baseball demonstration at the next Paralympics."
Can blind baseball aim for the Paralympics stage?
"As I said before, it's a lot of fun. I'm sure fans would love it. Blind baseball definitely deserves to be Paralympic."
Italy proved too strong in the WBSC WBSC Blind Baseball International Cup.
"The final results speak for themselves," Dedaj said. "We need to look beyond the final result. Italy has played blind baseball for 25 years now, the other countries started much later. I was impressed by Great Britain, and I can tell you we were tense before the final. We all witnessed the start of a new era for blind baseball, and we must be proud of what we accomplished. Personally, it was a great experience. We really came together as a team. We were a family."
Do you have plans for the future?
"I try not to plan too much, living one day at a time. I dedicated five years to prepare for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, training six days a week, even during pregnancy. Then the dream of participating in my second Paralympics vanished 20 days before my departure for Tokyo."
