Gel nails, long or short, almond-shaped or square. All perfect. It is inevitable to see them in a fencing match, where Olga Kharlan – team gold, individual bronze – barely has her hands visible, the Ukrainian flag on her manicured manicure, in those tense minutes that the competition lasts. French manicure, in this case, with a crystal embedded, like those on her leotards, on the nails of a splendid Simone Biles, who looks beautiful and smoothes her hair, to see if the haters At last, people pay more attention to her Yurchenko and less to her appearance, although, just in case, she touches up her lips before dazzling on the mat. She has three golds and a silver. Carolina Marín’s nails are red, classic, convinced, like her, and she shows them off without meaning to when she collapses in the middle of a match and cries inconsolably. Screaming. She has broken them again. And she is unable to see the future.
Immaculate manicure, braids and bows in the hair, lipstick on the lips and mascara. Not only on the mat, where codes of good appearance have been in force for years, or in the pool, where the women of artistic swimming impress with their pirouettes, but also with their staging. Coquetry, as well as power, talent and ambition, is present at La Défense and the Stade de France, at Saint-Denis and Roland Garros.
Few images are more powerful to dismantle such jokes and insults. From other times already. When the Gentlemen They didn’t even know they were Gentlemen. And they were full of talk about how women’s sport is neither sport nor feminine. It turns out that sport is just sport. Without a tagline. That’s why we vibrated and smiled watching that race in which María Pérez and Álvaro Martín hung the gold together. “You, here,” she said to him when crossing the finish line and making a Christian.
Today, sport welcomes with open arms women who wear makeup because they want to and others who box because they feel like it.
Today’s sports fans demand as much from women as from men. And if expectations are high and the results are not good, the disappointment is great. And the criticism is unforgiving.
It’s called normality. And it was about time.
If we had turned Ana Peleteiro into a magazine cover woman, so sure of herself, of her power and ability to live like a influencerit was because we thought she would return from Paris with gold, especially after Yulimar Rojas was out of the equation in the triple jump. And seeing her unable to even fight for medals was a big disappointment.
If we saw Carolina Marín in the badminton final and the crack of her knee hurt us a little too, if her tears moved us, and her resentment touched us, it is because we always expect the most from athletes like her.
If we were surprised not to see the Spanish football team in the final of the Games because we assumed that the best team in the world cannot but make it to Paris to directly seal a ticket that will take them to the final, if we debate why Alexia and why not Mariona now that we have the advantage of knowing that that penalty in 99 did not give us the encouragement we needed, it is because we believe them capable of anything. Even of rounding off with an Olympic medal a tremendous year in which they not only won the World Cup and the Nations League, but also earned the right to be heard and understood. At last.
Her disappointments and setbacks have been better digested thanks to the success of others like Rebeca Andrade, who was finally able to beat Biles (and on the floor, mind you), the first to bow to her. Like María Pérez, a silver and a gold later (no small feat). Like Imane Khelif (hello haters), woman, gold in boxing in the top category. Like Sifan Hassan, the all-rounder from Paris, she doesn’t care whether she runs 5 kilometres or a marathon; she can do it all. Like the Spanish water polo players, from the historic Maica García or Pili Peña to Martina Terré, who don’t get off the podium even after fifty dips.
We demand everything from them. Some disappoint us. Others give us joy. It’s sport. Without condescension. Without paternalism. It’s Paris and the Games of Equality. And beyond the numbers: focus, visibility, normality.
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