Three of the four Spanish relays qualified for Wednesday’s final, and two of them were women’s, the 4×100 (43s, seventh time of the eight finalists) and the 4×400 (fourth). Added to them is the men’s length (quarter). The 4×100, made up of the youngest athletes, and without the fastest of all, Guillem Crespí (sixth in the 100m final with 10.18s), injured, is a group in the process of coming together in the wise hands of the boss of everything This, Toni Puig, failed in the baton changes and was eliminated.
If the performance of the women in the 4×100 – 43s rounds: Sonia Molina, Esther Navero, Paula Sevilla and Maribel Pérez, 43.00s -, without the star Jaël Bestué, committed to the 200m final at night, the first Spanish in a final of the distance since Sandra Myers in 1990, was further proof of the splendid dynamic of success that began two years ago at the World Championships in Oregon and of the determination in the search for a place in the Paris Games, the 3m 25.25s of the 4×400 sprinters —Carmen Avilés, 52.45s in heels; Berta Segura, 50.76s, launched on an atomic diagonal; Eva Santidrián, 51.39s, and Blanca Hervás, the anchor, 50.65s—constitute a new Spanish record with an improvement of more than two seconds over the 3m 27.30s that the same quartet achieved when qualifying in May, in Nassau , Bahamas, for the Paris Games. “Our goal was to lower the 3’27, to make a 3’26, but we did not imagine a low 25 at all…”, they say in chorus, almost as if scared by the big bite to a record that remained in the sphere of 3′ 27 from the record (3m 27.57s) achieved at the 91 Tokyo World Championships by Sandra Myers, Blanca Lacambra, Julia Merino and Gregoria Ferrer, perhaps the best quartet in history. “The secret? We all get along great, and the track is great, as Berta already showed in the 400m individual [corrió en 51,92s, marca personal] and as seen in the final. Seeing the Polish Kaczmarek win in 48.98s motivated us a lot.”
When the ONCE cycling team was the best in the world, there was no event that its director, Manolo Saiz, liked to win more than the team time trial, in which the brand and the character and science of the technical manager triumphed. It was a strategy of naive mythologizing of teamwork that, in an individual sport, such as cycling – only one wears the yellow jersey and stands on the podium – generated tensions and contradictions.
The men of the 4×400 also had a good morning, but, in the process, their success —Iñaki Cañal, starting; Manuel Guijarro, the madman’s diagonal to take a free street; Óscar Husillos, the post of calm on the good wheel, and David García Zurita from Extremadura, the anchor of fifth place and a good mark, 3m 1.45s, the best of the season—and their joy did not reach the splendor of the women’s celebrations, as they also acquired certain somber nuances, a reflection of the eternal struggle between the objectives of whoever decides who wears the uniform and the desires of the athletes. The shadows are cast by the policy and strategy of the Spanish federation, the criteria of excellence crystallized in its own minimum mark that becomes a second customs for those who manage to qualify by their position in the ranking. The cycling champion feeds on his selfishness, because he dedicates all his sacrifices to himself, his body and his form, and also the athletes, like the Spanish four-year-olds, who in recent seasons have had to sacrifice their ambitions and personal dreams in exchange to contribute brilliantly to the success of the long relay, which in May also qualified in the Bahamas for Paris.
“But this success does not justify having given up my individual ambitions. Let’s see, here everyone has their personal trainer, they have their goals, and I also have the hope, let’s put it that way, together with Iñaki, of being able to be individually in Paris, apart from what we have done in the Bahamas. So, focusing everything on the relay is not as such an option. Because I think there is still hope,” says Óscar Husillos (45.28s in his post, the third), the oldest, and, in a way, the leader of the Spanish team, since he is the only one who has dropped below 45s (44 .73s) at some point in your life. “And I think my teammate can repeat the same words as me,” adds the sprinter from Astudillo (Palencia), before passing the word in the mixed zone to Cañal, the team’s first reliever, and his 45.40s coming out of heels. They are the second best mark of his life and would have earned him the European minimum to compete individually in Rome, if he had achieved it on time. “Giving up on preparing for certain competitions on an individual level has prevented me from being here demonstrating my true worth, due to the criteria of excellence that the federation has,” says the Asturian sprinter. “So now it’s time to think about the final, return to Spain and with just a couple of bullets try to also qualify for individual qualification for Paris.” [mínima olímpica, 45,00s], which is the main objective of the season. The relief thing is a super important added incentive. But I think that they are two things that can be combined and that our position must also be respected and also understand that point of subjectivity that we are sacrificing part of our own to contribute to the relay, and that the more individual races I run, the better I feel. I’m finding. So in the end I see it as a way to also train to perform at my best within the relay.”
The women, they, have no mental cobwebs, aware that their level still does not allow them to be individually in the Games, in which the minimum of the WA is 50.95s, and that of the federation is 51.35s for those that are in ranking. “The relief,” they say, “has opened the doors of Paris to us.”
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