the shill from a different IP wrote:
the Spanish have some kind of national fund that gives great gobs of money for vision-impaired athletes and gives them a big leg up on their poor cousins in Portugal and elsewhere. No idea to what degree that is true, although I've no reason to disbelieve him
This is almost true.
ONCE, the Spanish national organization fro visually-impaired people has a lottery of their own. Spanish people love to gamble and play these sort of games so ONCE gets a lot of money from it - and therefore their athletes get financial support to train and compete at the highest level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ONCE