Abel Vázquez Cortijo[a] (born 3 August 1989)[1] is a judo athlete from Spain who represented Spain at the 2011 and 2013 IPC European Championships, and the 2008 and 2012 Summer Paralympics.
Personal
Vázquez is vision-impaired.[2] He is from Seville.[3][4] He completed a Bachelor of Science in Physical Activity and Sport. In 2013, he was attending Pablo de Olavide University in Seville where he was working on completing a Masters of Teaching in Secondary Education.[5]
Judo
Vázquez won a bronze medal at the 2011 European Championships[2][3] held in Crawley, England.[4] In October 2011, he competed in a regional Spanish national vision impaired judo event in Guadalajara.[6] In November 2013, he competed in the Open Judo Tournament Guadalajara.[2] He competed in the 2013 IPC European Judo Championships held in early December in Eger, Hungary,[3][7][8][9] winning a silver medal[10][11][12][13][14][15] in the under-81kilogram group.[16] He competed against Ukrainian Olexandr Kosinov for the bronze medal.[4] The national team, coached by Vicente Arolas, treated the event as preparation for the 2016 Summer Paralympics.[4] In 2013, he was one of seven Paralympic sportspeople awarded a 2013/2014 "Iberdrola Foundation Scholarship" by the Spanish Paralympic Committee, Iberdrola Foundation, the Spanish Sports Council and the Spanish Ministry of Social Services and Equality. It provided him with €490 for each of the ten academic months of the year.[5][17]