They advanced like a river. Laura Ester, Isabel Piralkova, Anni Espar, Bea Ortiz, Nona Pérez, Paula Crespí, Elena Ruiz, Pili Peña, Judith Forca, Paula Camus, Maica García, Paula Leiton and Martina Terré. Together, in their name and in the name of those who preceded them and are no longer with us, they offered a display of harmony, they were a torrent of will, strength, resistance and unstoppable ingenuity. Australia always swam against the current in the final act of the Olympic pool at La Défense. The water that consecrated the heroes of swimming at the Paris Games closed the competition on Saturday with a final in which the Spanish swimmers inscribed in stone their unforgettable feats to close with a gold the saga that began at the London Games led by the inscrutable Miki Oca, a water polo legend who had the ability to stay in the background. After a silver in 2012, a fifth place in 2016, and another silver in 2021, they reached the top. Only the United States has produced a longer-lived and more glorious dynasty in the history of water polo.
Two girls from Rubi, a town near Barcelona, set the pace of the game. The veteran, Bea Ortiz, the third highest scorer in the competition with 19 goals; and her escort, the young Elena Ruiz, aged 19, the fourth highest scorer in Paris with 18 goals, a prodigy with a cool mind like an iceberg and a cognitive activity at full capacity in a rather small body. The two, who have known each other since they were children, came together at the most critical point to multiply themselves and amplify the abilities of their teammates. They played with astonishing ease, passing the ball at speed and feeding the wingers and the buoys at a pace that was unattainable for the Australians when the third quarter came and they broke the resistance. Three goals by Bea Ortiz and a save by Martina Terré on Abby Andrews in the course of a prodigious two-minute sequence were the straw that broke the yellow rock.
Paula Leiton, the buoy who scored the 1-1, the signal for the charge, explained it with a backhanded ladle that brought the water to a boil. “The moment when we went two goals down and went from 2-3 to 2-4 and 2-5 was the most important,” said Paula. “It was when we broke the dynamic we had been going through, of not scoring for a long time.” Water polo matches are corrosive. A process of wear and tear, of water that drowns, of legs that kick, of hands that whip and grab. If the Spanish team emerged unscathed from the foam and tension, it was because they managed to think more clearly until they struck the final blow in that third quarter, when the team went from winning 2-3 to going ahead 2-5.
“Goals are good, but there are things that are better,” said Elena Ruiz. “Everything that is not goals is what needs to be worked on a lot more, such as defense and some passes that are key so that others only have to push the ball.”
Anyone can score goals. Everything flows in Spain. There are no clear leaders. There is no conductor. Sometimes the great Maica García, other times Anni Espar, veterans of 2012, sometimes Bea Ortiz, the second generation, and sometimes the last, represented by Elena Ruiz and goalkeeper Martina Terré, two monoliths of serenity. Two decisive pieces that were not there in Tokyo and that in Paris helped tip the final in their favor.
“We have been changing the team and the spirit is the same: to go and win,” says Martina, the goalkeeper. “The young players bring this innocence of not having played in any finals, we don’t have headaches knowing that we have lost finals before. We try to bring that feeling of going to enjoy ourselves without being afraid of anything and to help the veterans with the push as well.”
Marina Terré, 21, was playing her first Olympic final. She didn’t flinch. She got the game under control with two first quarters that will go down in the annals of reading shots in anticipation. She saw them coming and moved before the angle in which she would intercept the ball’s trajectory, as if she discovered it in the Australians’ sign language. Where Gabriella Palm, her counterpart, stopped seven of 18 shots, 39%, the Catalan stopped 15 of 24, 63%. “I was very calm with myself,” she said, with the gold medal already hanging on her chest; “I was more nervous against Holland because we had several championships that made us walk a tightrope. Against Australia I don’t think I stopped as much. With how well my teammates defend, it’s very easy to find the gaps to stop. They close part of the goal with their arms and in the end they leave me by my side and that’s it.”
Thanks to the united efforts of everyone and the inspiration of Martina Terré in nine splendid actions against Williams and Andrews, Arancini, Kearns, Armit and Gofers, the team finished the first two quarters with a 2-3 lead.
Even against one less player, when Spain lost a player due to suspension, the Australian attack could not prosper. “We defended our inferiorities in an incredible way,” said Paula Leiton. “Martina decided that today she would close the blinds and she closed the blinds.”
Martina to start and Maica García, author of the 6-9 and the 7-11, to kill off the match. Alpha and omega of a victory that gives the gold medal to an unforgettable team.
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