Tragedy Blanca Fernández Ochoa's last conversation with her family: "Don't leave home"
"I was only five years old. I remember that my mother got us out of bed in the middle of the night because Paquito had made
the best time in the first heat of the slalom in Japan
. We were all in pajamas, we watched the second test on a small TV in black and white that we had in our house in Cercedilla. The moment my brother won the gold was crazy, my mother couldn't stop crying, the house was full, monitors from Navacerrada came, waiters from bars and hotels in the station, townspeople, everyone shouting euphorically, it was incredible," recalls Lola Fernandez Ochoa (55), the youngest of the seven brothers of the legendary skier, in LOC.
This is how it was recorded in her mind that February 13, 1972, 50 years ago, when at
the Teine station, in Sapporo
, the special slalom was disputed, one of the star tests of the Winter Olympic Games that year were held in Japan.
To the general astonishment, a 21-year-old Spaniard, small but fast as a hare, overwhelmed the world ski gods, conquering the Olympic gold medal against all odds, the only one achieved by Spanish skiing in its history
"As if an Austrian triumphed in the Las Ventas bullring"
, Paquito defined it in his biography La vida, a slalom that he could not see published, since he died at the age of 56 from lymphatic cancer in 2006. Not even he himself believed his feat.
"While I was going down I thought: either these are asleep or I'm out. As I approached the finish line, I put my ass down to put weight on my heels and push more. When I saw that my time was the best, I felt something unspeakable, I put on to hug everyone."
Jose Antonio Samaranch, vice president of the IOC and patron of Fernández Ochoa
, together with the president of the federation and some other director of the small Spanish delegation, were already at the airport to return to Spain, but when they saw with astonishment that Paquito had been first, They quickly took a taxi to meet him at the foot of the track.
His arrival in Barajas was tremendous, like a rock star: the golden boy, as he was nicknamed from now on, had been born.
"When I saw him get off the plane with
that laurel wreath and the hanging medal
, in a crowd, I couldn't believe it was my brother and I thought: I want to be like him," says Lola, who became a member of the Olympic team in ski.
Even Franco received him in El Pardo.
"Spain needs more young people like you," he told her excitedly.
In that Francoist Spain where the national sport was to watch football in bars, aces like
Manolo Santana, Ángel Nieto or Paquito Fernández Ochoa
became idols and maximum exponents of "national pride".
Skiing was then a sport reserved for the elites, since the common people were content to go up on Sundays in the 600 to Navacerrada or other stations and slide down the slopes in plastic bags.
From Carabanchel to Cercedilla
Fernández Ochoa was an exception, because although his origins were humble, he had been skiing since he was 3 years old.
The first-born of eight siblings, his parents, Francisco and Dolores,
left the populous neighborhood of Carabanchel
to work as a janitor and cook at the Navacerrada ski school, 60 kilometers from Madrid, settling in the town of Cercedilla.
Although all of his children skied as children, in Paquito, the eldest, they placed their hopes for him, so in the fifth year of high school he hung up his studies for skiing after proclaiming himself champion of Spain at the age of 16.
When they put a statue of him in Cercedilla, the town where he grew up. JOSÉ AYMÁ
"My parents, my grandparents, all working and I skiing, so either I served or I left," commented the skier.
Those were times when
minority sports such as skiing did not receive a subsidy
.
"We participated in races where we ate guests and traveled on trains sitting all night on wooden benches, with our backpacks on our shoulders," Fernández Ochoa recounted.
That, as the firstborn, he was very responsible and took great care of his brothers, as confirmed by Lola.
"He was always on top of us like a second father. When Blanca and I started competing, he forced us to attend to the press even if we were having a bad day, and insisted that we be polite and kind to everyone. If we forgot to say hello to someone , zas, kick under the table. I recognize that if we have fallen well it has been thanks to him, "says his sister.
Apart from the discipline, he remembers him as an endearing and very cheerful being.
"He was hilarious, he had an overwhelming personality, where the brown mess went."
As a result of the medal, Paquito's life took a turn: in 1973 he married
Chus Vargas, mother of his three children, Bárbara, Paula and Francisco
, and continued to compete, achieving a bronze in the Saint Moritz World Cup in 1974. , something that alternated giving courses all over the world.
His friendship with Don Juan Carlos
After retiring in 1982, he returned to Spain, where he was quite a celebrity: he was made a member of the IOC, opened two sports shops, worked as a commentator on television and associated with the most influential personalities, such as King Juan Carlos.
He was his monitor and also Prince Felipe and the Infantas, but above all they were friends, the King often
went up to Cercedilla to play squash with Paquito
, and he also used to invite him to his house in Baqueira.
But according to Lola, the medal didn't change her one bit.
"It is true that she made very powerful friendships, but he still enjoyed going to catch chanterelles with the townspeople or throwing dominoes at the bar"
Blanca Fernández Ochoa, at her brother Paco's funeral in 2006. GTRES
His desire to live made his premature end especially dramatic, when lymphatic cancer ended his life in less than a year.
A tragedy with which, according to his sister, he set an example.
"I remember when
at the Anderson clinic he told us that they had to amputate one of his legs
, I couldn't stop crying, but he told me: 'Don't cry, Lola, I have the other one left to keep beating you at golf."
Unfortunately, when the surgeons opened, the disease was widespread and there was nothing they could do.
When Paquito woke up and saw himself with two legs, he was aware that he was going to die.
"It was very big, he just commented:
I'm glad it happened to me instead of one of my brothers or my children
".
Shortly after, on November 6, 2006, he died at just 56 years old.
"It was a very hard blow, it was the soul of the family," says Lola.
The tragedies did not end there.
Also 56 years old, the other Olympic champion in the family,
Blanca, winner of a bronze at the Albertville games in February 1992
, took her own life in the summer of 2019. After several days missing, her body was found in La Peñota, a peak near her childhood home in Cercedilla.
Paquito's death affected her enormously, but Lola does not believe that if her brother had lived, Blanca's destiny would have changed.
"Her death was caused by her illness, that bipolarity that made her go from euphoria to absolute depression. Her end was very sad, I brought her to live with me for the last two years and precisely the week before she disappeared I saw her very well I even thought I was going to be able to get over it. But I guess I was a good actress. Bipolarity is terrible, in the end almost everyone who suffers from it ends up in a similar way."
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