Jorge Carrasco made his first appearance at the IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship in 2024, in Egypt, where Chile finished sixth. Two years on, he's back for a second edition, this time as one of Chile's mainstays in Granollers. He can score, he can defend, he can save shots.

He was involved in every aspect of Chile's fantastic win in the inaugural day of the 4th edition of the competition, when the South American side took the scalp of Egypt, the reigning champions, with a comeback win, 2:1, after conceding the first set.

But the story of how he got here at all starts well before either of the two editions of the competition.

It began with a motorcycle accident in 2017, when Carrasco was hit by a car and lost part of his leg below the ankle. It's the kind of event that ends a lot of sporting careers. For Carrasco, it turned out to be the start of one.

"Through some friends, I met adapted sport," he says.

"I started playing basketball, I started playing handball, and it seems that I have good conditions for handball."

Handball wasn't the only sport he found through that introduction to adapted sport. Carrasco also played wheelchair basketball for Chile at international level, including in 2019 when the national team beat Uruguay 44:43 in Montevideo, a squad that, like his handball club, drew heavily on players from Lobos de El Bosque.

These days, though, he's settled on two disciplines and no more: "I only dedicate myself to handball and basketball in general."

 

In handball specifically, he says what's kept him in the sport isn't personal achievement. "The main thing is the team," he says. "There are no individualities."

And Chile embedded that ethos into their DNA. That team ethos was tested immediately in Granollers. Chile opened their 2026 campaign against reigning champions Egypt in Group D, and it did not start well — Egypt won the first set 8:7. Chile hit back to take the second 9:7, then took control in the extra period, winning it 5:2 to close out a 2:1 victory over the world champions.

Against the reigning champions, six of their ten players got on the scoresheet. Carrasco had six points - four via spin shots, which count double - and two via normal shots, and saved four of the seven shots he faced, for a 57% saving efficiency. Only teammate Jonathan Veas scored more, adding seven points as Chile found their footing after the early setback.

Even so, Carrasco was careful not to read too much into a single result. "We have very good feelings, but always taking everything with measure, with tranquillity," he said afterwards. "It is the first game. There is still a lot of championship left."

 

There's context behind that caution. Chile were fourth at the inaugural IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship in Egypt in 2022, losing the bronze-medal match to Slovenia, then finished sixth at the following edition, also in Egypt, in 2024, the tournament where Carrasco made his own World Championship debut. A win over the champions on day one is a promising start, but needs to be doubled on Thursday, when Chile take on Lithuania, in what could be a decider for the quarter-finals calculations, with two of the three teams in Group D progressing to the next phase.

What hasn't changed is the ambition.

"We came to compete with all the countries. The desire is still the same. The number one goal is to be champion," he says.

Asked who he's playing for, Carrasco starts with the obvious answers: family, friends, the people who've supported him through training - before breaking into a grin and widening the list considerably: "My wife, my dog, my mother-in-law, everything."

It's a lighter moment, but the point underneath it isn't a joke. "For each training session that one leaves, I left my family out," he says. "But it is worth every effort."

 

Continuing the tongue-in-cheek moment, Carrasco jokes that maybe he'll end up a paraskier one day. For now, though, his focus is exactly where it's been since 2017: handball and basketball, in that order of priority this week.

With the reigning champions already beaten, Chile have given themselves a chance to go further than fourth or sixth. It only takes two wins now to progress to the semi-finals and be in for the medal fight.

Yet Carrasco isn't dwelling on the accident, the surgeries, or how unlikely this all once seemed. Asked whether Chile came to Granollers just to make up the numbers, his answer is short.

"We came for less? No. We came to participate, we came to compete with all the countries."

Then, simply he concludes: "To be champions."