KAWAGOE, Japan (AP) – Clouds began to gather over the Kasumigaseki Country Club on Monday, and the matching Swiss smiles from Albane Valenzuela and her brother Alexis couldn’t have been brighter. This is your Olympic moment that nothing can spoil.
Because of this, Valenzuela, a Phi Beta Kappa at Stanford, has given up her final semester in college golf. Her professional career was her best chance to return to the Olympics, this time with her 19-year-old brother as a caddy. He is more than a brother.
“He’s our miracle,” she said.
Alexis was 3 when he was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. For the first five years of his life, he did not speak – doctors said he might never speak – and the family was told that he would likely never be able to go to school.
He now speaks three languages. After the Olympics, he will return to Dallas to prepare for his sophomore year at SMU, where he played a tournament as a newcomer to the golf team.
Is he a miracle? Alexis thought about it while holding an umbrella for his sister.
“I think I’m grateful for what I do every day,” he said. “In life I always try to be happy. I don’t know if I’m a miracle for any reason. I’m just trying to be happy. I try to enjoy every moment. “
His inspiration is so strong that Albane wrote about him for her college entrance essay, mostly the influence he had on her.
“How he shaped me into a mature person who is aware of the realities of life,” she said. “Growing up with someone with autism gives you different perspectives and insights into life.”
The Valenzuela family is unique in many ways, with golf taking center stage.
She is the daughter of a Mexican father and a French mother who lived in three international cities before she was a teenager.
Alberto Valenzuela played college golf at UCLA and was a French amateur champion who was playing an exhibition at Evian Golf Resort in 1991 when he met his wife Diane.
They lived in New York when their daughter was born, moved to Mexico City when Albane was three, and three years later to Geneva. She became Swiss at the age of 14 and played under the Swiss flag throughout her amateur career.
She is fluent in French, English and Spanish and has a good command of German.
Her mother once told Golfweek magazine, “When she’s in Mexico, she’ll feel like a Mexican. When she’s in Paris she’ll feel a little French. When she’s in the States, she loves to be American and she likes to represent Switzerland when she’s playing. It’s part of the world, you know. “
No sporting event is more global than the Olympics, and it means the world to Valenzuela.
The timing couldn’t have been better for her debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. She took time off a year before Stanford to play where she could. Valenzuela had two top five finishes on the Ladies European Tour and made it to the US Women’s Open. That was enough for her to qualify as an amateur for the Olympics. She came in 21st, an experience of a lifetime.
Almost.
Alexis was to become a caddy for them until they discovered in the weeks leading up to Rio that he was too young. He went off the ropes that week, happy as always. He kept a rubber strap from the Rio Olympics until Tokyo was discontinued.
“I’m glad to be on the ropes,” he said.
He was also her caddy at the 2017 US Women’s Amateur, a pivotal moment in life, and not just because the big sister made the championship game in San Diego.
The boy, who couldn’t speak until he was 5, was approached by a reporter about his autism and decided it was time to talk about it.
“I think at that moment I thought, ‘Maybe it’s time.’ Maybe I should see how people react, ”said Alexis. “I decided to try it out. I could see the response was very open, everyone was very supportive. That was the opposite of the result I had imagined. I thought people could judge me more, show me the side eye. “He has autism.” Everyone thought it was a strength, not a weakness.
“I thought if everyone is like this,” he added, “I should do something like that.”
And he did.
He started a charity called Alexis for Autism, organizing golf tournaments to raise funds for autism research.
The first in Geneva raised nearly $ 350,000. The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed its efforts since then. His next goal is to raise money for people who are still struggling from Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, where he attended high school. Her parents now live in Nassau, his father works in asset management.
“Alexis, he’s our alpha boy,” said the father. “There is no bigger star than my son. An autistic golfer who is now collecting money and giving hope to many people. “
The siblings are inseparable. Valenzuela had her brother-caddy for him at the Women’s PGA Championship and all summer before returning to SMU.
It wasn’t a smooth sailing for her. Valenzuela struggled with a shoulder injury from her rookie season interrupted by the pandemic.
Her brother had an emergency appendectomy in October. Then, in November, her appendix was removed. Two months later, she tested positive for the coronavirus. That was around the time her mother had a tumor removed from her eye nerve.
The family knows a little about adversity.
“Life throws bad things at you,” said Valenzuela. “You have to overcome it and move forward.”
It can make golf feel trivial, although that’s important to Valenzuela too.
She has a degree in political science and worked for a few months during the pandemic as the personal assistant to the CEO and co-founder of Slync.io, a logistics software company and one of its sponsors.
“This world is always out there,” she said. “To be a professional athlete is a unique opportunity. I’m 23 and I still have my life ahead of me. I’m in no hurry to work in the corporate world. I have the best job in the world. “
She’s at the Olympics. She is with her brother. There is nowhere else she would rather be.
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