A dad. Husband. Business-owner. Motorcyclist. Fan of the recently returned British band, Oasis.

But of all of these interests, activities and hobbies, only one has led him to install an elevator and convert an entire floor of his Barcelona house to be fully accessible for wheelchair users: fencing and coaching.

Like many others Freitas started fencing when he was a child, at the age of 7 in his home country of Argentina.

His love for fencing has taken him around the world, coaching and competing in China, Italy and the USA.

Freitas was always aware of Para fencing. But a motorcycle trip to deliver toys to disadvantaged children in Las Vegas from his home in California in 2019 would change that awareness to experience.

“One truck hit me in the back of my motorcycle. This is Saturday, I go there [to Las Vegas] because it’s in December close to Christmas. I bring one big bag with the toys for one foundation in Las Vegas. The toys don’t arrive!”

After his accident, and with years of experience in standing fencing behind him, Freitas found a new appreciation for Para fencing and began competing himself, picking up his weapon with a new perspective.

“If you ask me: who is more strong? I would tell you that wheelchair athletes are more strong. Because you see people in wheelchairs fence and move – it’s so hard for one guy in a wheelchair. Because if you are fencing with your whole body, you move with your leg. But in wheelchair you don’t only move your legs you have to move your hips, up.

“It’s more hard because all is the tension is in five seconds. In normal fencing you have time to stop, take a break, think. In a wheelchair if you are not strong, you lose.”

Freitas made his international debut as a Para fencer in 2022. He travelled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the Americas Championships where he won silver as part of both the men’s epee and foil teams. Since then he has continuously improved, leading to individual regional medals in all three weapons in 2024 and his first World Cup podium on his latest trip to Sao Paulo in February this year.

But instead of focusing purely on his own fencing, Freitas also became a lightning rod for the development of Para fencing in a long list of countries.

These include the Americas, where World Para Fencing has been working towards getting the sport onto the Parapan American Games programme for the first time in history.

Freitas regularly hosts between 15 and 20 Para fencers – and their families – at his home in Barcelona. He organises their entire trips, including transport, and his wife, Chien Han, who runs a restaurant, ensures everyone is fed. Freitas’s mother, Cristina, also helps out. The family has hosted visitors not only from Argentina but also from Colombia, Venezuela, Türkiye, Ukraine, Spain, Israel, Greece and Italy.

They train with him there, in his garage, sometimes for weeks at a time. The focus for Freitas is passing his knowledge onto coaches so when they return home, they can implement it in their own national or club programmes.

“You need a coach first. If you don’t have the coach, it’s impossible to have a student,” Freitas said. “This is the first thing because the coach needs to promote [the sport], to the public and in schools.”

For Freitas, who is currently focused on his own performance at September’s Para fencing World Championships in Iksan, South Korea, and the edge of the next Paralympic cycle where he is aiming for LA 2028, there are many important things in life. These include his love for motorcycles which he still shares with his daughters Sol Ebony, aged 24, Luna Maria, aged six and Estrella Maria, aged two.

“Too many people ask me ‘you want to change this life? You like this accident?’ I say ‘yes, 100%’.

I’m happy that I had the accident because it changed my life and now I have another life. I know another life. I live this life and this is new. And I see my daughter happy. I see my daughter using the motorcycle. I don’t stop my daughter using the motorcycle in motocross and my little daughter the same.

“It’s not about only motorcycle, it’s about all sports and for me it’s amazing. And this new life? It’s fantastic. Because you see the real people. There is different people, real people.”