The vibration of the diving boards, the crash of the springs, the bodies falling into the water and the continuous splash of drops are amplified under the wooden and glass dome of the diving pool at the 1986 World Cup in Madrid. Boom, boom, boom. Brom, brom, brom. Chas, chus, chas, chus. Again and again, every day from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, the regular chain of boys climbing and throwing themselves from the tower into the pool has an aesthetic and hypnotic effect. Standing on the edge, Domenico Rinaldi and his right-hand man Arturo Miranda monitor the discourse of the bodies subjected to the tyranny of geometry. The flips, the corkscrews, the carp, the men like needles that stick themselves incessantly, are never enough.
“Movement is always imperfect,” Rinaldi says. “All learning is failing and learning. That’s why we repeat it a thousand times. Because we almost always work on a mistake. Diving is very psychological because people work every day, every movement, on a mistake. And sometimes it’s inevitable that you feel disappointed. You say: ‘Do I always fail? ’ No. We are always falling and we learn to walk straight. The Olympic Games are won with an average score of 8, 8.5. Those who do the most difficult jumps receive a score of 9. Never 10. Something has failed.”
Signed in 2022 to develop a national diving programme based in Madrid, Italian veteran coach and Olympic diver Domenico Rinaldi has built in record time the most competitive team that Spain has ever presented at the Games. The best are on the way to Paris: Ana Carvajal, Valeria Antolín, and the synchronised 3-metre springboard diving duo made up of Adrián Abadía and Nicolás García Boissier, silver at the last European Championships and winners in Doha, in February, of a bronze that constitutes the first prize that Spain has obtained at a World Championship in this specialty.
“They are nothing alike,” says Rinaldi. “Nothing at all!” Miranda confirms, shrugging his shoulders. The fact that two people are able to empathize in order to synchronize themselves on the trampoline and thus be able to reproduce exactly the same push and the same acrobatics in a flight that lasts less than two seconds, is due to exhaustive repetitions and a strange coincidence that no one can explain. “We take it easy,” says Adrian, with the nasal tone and half-closed eyes of someone who is about to fall asleep in the sun on the beach.
“In the pool we depend on each other,” Nicolas observes. “We do the water work together, but when we finish he goes one way and I go mine. The key is that we don’t interfere. We live in the same house, but we never go to the supermarket together. Each one has his own routines. We are similar in the four jumps we do. The rest is completely different.”
Nicolas is 29 years old and an expert. He is living the twilight of his sporting career. He is about to graduate as a naval engineer, has a frugal palate and loves silence. Adrian, 22, wants to study nursing, is fighting his tendency to gain weight and is a rowdy music lover. If there is one thing they have in common, it is their common disinterest in vacuuming their flat. “We arrive very tired,” explains the engineer.
In Paris they will follow the same plan as in the World Championships in Doha: avoid unfamiliar gestures, be consistent through simplicity and precision, and hope that the Mexicans, the English and the Italians crash in their fight for silver and bronze, behind the inaccessible Chinese flyers. “The difficult thing,” says Nicolás, “is learning to know how to be in the air. When we do a new jump you have what we call ‘fear of getting lost in the air’. Not knowing where you are and opening up when you shouldn’t and throwing yourself blindly into the water. When you do it once your body identifies it and the rest is just repeating. You have to try to get rid of the fear of hitting. It’s water. It hurts, but after ten minutes you’re back in there. In gymnastics if you land badly you can fracture. Here your skin turns red and that’s it.”
Repressing fear is the key. The Chinese have mastered the most efficient method. “China,” says Rinaldi, “is practically the winner of all the gold medals for a social reason. Because, contrary to popular belief, it is much easier for a 30-kilogram child to jump from a ten-metre platform than from a three-metre springboard, where you need muscle power. At 13 years old, the Chinese win platform games because they have been training since they were seven. What happens? European parents don’t send their children to do ten-metre platform jumps out of fear. Meanwhile, the Chinese in the national team have been living together since they started primary school. They are boarders and only have Sunday afternoons off. Is this good for winning an Olympic medal? Yes. Is it good socially? I don’t know. In China, these divers get rich and the state takes care of their entire families.”
Rinaldi and Miranda agree: infrastructure is the least of it. Good coaches make the difference. Italy, Cuba and Canada are examples of how to make the most of resources. Creating a team spirit and competitive discipline is the hardest part, especially in countries with no tradition like Spain, with just 88 licenses. “The most important thing,” concludes the technical director, “is to get used to winning medals. You have to go out to win medals! This is like Real Madrid: you don’t go in to play, you go in to win. Can you lose? Yes. But the mentality must be to play the game to win.”
Spain has been a desert of show jumping since Javier Illana retired ten years ago. In Paris, the team will be fighting to consolidate a small revolution.
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