The athletes are people of faith, where they would go if they did not believe. Who would give them certainties in this world so volatile? What would they grab? There are psychologist, there are dark spells, there are candles to the Virgin or prayers in monasteries, stamps, effort test data, unwavering friendship, love, physiologist words, managers jokes,, Big Data Seria, Chips, GPS, Pulsometers, Enhanced, technology, sneakers and smart templates.
There are those who make their passage through the history of a friendship, and there are everything, an absolute category to which it approaches, which enters the stadium alone, the first of the 20 kilometers marches, a void around it, and smiles, and its pulse accelerates even more when you glimpse at the end of the line to its Italian friend and rival Antonella Palmisano, the flower pinta in the tail and the long tracksuit. He has retired from the test with stomach problems, but before going to the service he cannot resist fulfilling a duty of friendship that has been imposed: a flag of Spain to his friend of the soul to celebrate as his second world title won in Tokyo, the 20 kilometers seven days after having won the 35th day.
And he has also won a European gold and an Olympic half with Álvaro Martín. It is, at 29, the best world marching in history. “It is the best world athlete of the moment. Although the march is not as valued as the pole jump, in men, it is comparable. What Maria does, wins in all distances, 20 and 35 kilometers, which are not 100m and 200m precisely, and with what brands …”, says, obnubilada the marching of Tarant Orce, hugs intense, closely with her, with her sweat, her tears, all her fluids and accepts happy to share even the return of honor, red, yellow, red, shared. “She always awaits me, so I couldn’t fail today.”
While María Pérez marches, and one to one responds to the attacks of the entire Latin American front that has joined against him, so hard is his answer that is left alone-one to the Peruvian Kimberly García, the Ecuadorian Milena Torres and the Mexican Alegna González have been falling-, at the supply table, her coach, Jacinto Garzón, so devoted of the last technologies. live glucose, lactate, body temperature, power, heart, speed – as of ancient faith, carries in its portfolio stamps, doctor of the church, and what character, what poetry, and remember that before flying to Tokyo they stopped a minute in the hermitage of the Virgin of Font Romeu, in the Catalan Pyrenees, to turn on a candle on the altar and obtain its protection. “And Font Romeu wants me to go next year and my husband and coach, Lorenzo, to train at height, instead of light, in our Alps, like this year,” says Palmisano.
“Our friendship arose right here, in Tokyo, when the Olympic Games that I won and she was fourth, where we felt close and then we shared a story that unites us a little, a story of suffering at the beginning, a story of determination and strength, so I look a lot in her and she looks in me. That is what unites us. She was very close to me when they operated on me, I was close to her when I was close to her when I was close to me when [Mundial de Oregón: ganó Kimberly García en su ausencia] Already from there our relationship was born, because then we almost trained together. ”
Neither Santa Teresa nor the Virgin of Font Romeu nor the lunar elliptical machines nor the heat cameras, is in the cradle Italian peasant champion that illuminates her look. “Antonella is special, today he has given me the flag and I did not expect it, and I have seen it that I was in our supplies after retiring by muscle fatigue,” he says, and one imagines an Italian Olympic champion, picking ice with mamporros against metallic fences to prepare heritage to her admired Maria. “Last night I wrote a message, because it is our ritual to write us a message before competing and I told her that there was a little girl who in her day I dreamed of being a great athlete and who dreamed of being an Olympic champion. I came to my first Olympic Games in Tokyo, I went fourth, like her in Rio, and when I saw her winning in Sapporo five years later, I said, I Olympic? “
Paul McGrath is a geek of march, data, technology and history, which leads him to the origin of the march in Catalonia, in the spare hours, Josep Marín, Valentín Massana … he carries everything and also a calculator in the head when he leaves, which does not prevent him from confessing that the last two kilometers, he was praying, two notices and a third place threatened. Virgencita, Virgencita that stays as I am.
When the fearsome Toshikazu Yamanishi, Samurai without Katana, attacked, one, two, three times, and to do it he ran, he simultaneously lifted the two feet of the ground, there was Paul McGrath plethoric, his shadow sometimes, his touches as many others, responding, chopping him, a fly that did not leave him calm. And when Yamanishi, the worldwide distance of distance (1h 16m 10s) received his third warning and was condemned to stand two minutes in the fridge, the Catalan marcador, debuting in a World Cup at 23, definitely saw the open sky. He forgot about the sticky Chinese Zhaozhao Wang, forgot about fear and, bold, accelerated towards the victory that awaited him in the goal of the Olympic stadium, once the dark tunnel was crossed in light, like all the champions.
There were four kilometers left. Then, absorbed in his world, he felt a burst of air on his left and saw the Brazilian Cai Bonfim passed as a plane, who came out of knowing where, and shortly after Wang happened. Then the caution won. He marched with two notices, like the Chinese, while Bonfim, the silver medalist in the 35 only had one. The third, the fridge. “With two minutes standing it would not be a finalist,” says McGrath that he began to pray so that they would not be extended or took another card, and when he finished, so young and world medalist, what a talent and what work between Cornellà and Font Romeu, going up ports by bike, Alejandro Aragonese, who uses his vacation to climb with him to Font Romeu, and works from eight to five clue.
“Without him, without his sacrifice to be with me, it would be nothing,” says McGrath, who ends third after the Brazilian and the Chinese and crosses the finish line, is schoing, puts his knees on the tartan before taking the flag, he is Santiguar again. “I’m a believer,” says McGrath ,. “And pray help. Before the World Cup I went up to the Monastery of Monserrat by bicycle to ask for help.” It will continue to go up and continue to triumph, and fly in Los Angeles 28, the dream that keeps the future of the Spanish march alive.
