At one end the handle of a paint canister is pierced by a wire, at the other end a medicine ball is wrapped with a net of fishing for crabs and both sides are joined with a rope. He already has his athletic hammer. Or at least he already has the hammer with which Javier Cienfuegos started, which on Wednesday (20.40 hours) will become the first Spanish in a World Cup final after qualifying directly on Tuesday.

Almost 20 years ago, in Montijo, between Badajoz and Mérida, a man, Antonio Fuentes, dreamed of forming a pitcher, created the device and gathered three big boys, who wanted to run, but had the body for something else. One of them was Cienfuegos. "They were very humble, artisanal beginnings. We had a hammer for all three and it was a hammer that was dismantled every two by three. That is why I now give a lot of value to the hammers that I have, I take care of them so that they can use them young people when I retire, "says the pitcher who, like Ana Peleteiro, Fernando Carro or Eusebio Cáceres, lives his best moment now, many years after pointing to the Moon. As a teenager, at age 18, he was a record holder of the junior world, but it was necessary to spend much later to get here.

"It seemed that I was going to eat the world and it was not like that. Things are going as they go. The change from the junior artifact, which weighs six kilos, to the absolute artifact, seven, cost me, I varied my technique and then, three years ago "When I started to feel well, I got injured in the back. In fact, this is the first year I have been able to work without problems. Now, along with Antonio, Carlos Burón [the weight thrower coach Manolo Martínez helps me," among others] and the triangle I think it works, "says Cienfuegos who does not rule out a medal. The two Poles, Pawe Fajdeky Wojciech Nowicki, seem unattainable, but third place is a real goal.

If he manages to get on the podium he promises to celebrate it, but says he won't take the medal to bait in his office: the Parliament of Extremadura. In the last regional elections, he was proposed to present himself as number 3 of the Popular Party and accepted without further ado. "I was not affiliated, but I had already gone to demonstrations by Extremadura, like the train. I had my ideology, I had not expressed it, but they called me and I decided to take the leap because I think there are things that can be done much better "Cienfuegos concludes that, yes, for now, he must see politics from the opposition.

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