• Hockey grass.Berta Bonastre and Carlota Petchame, cousins ​​and international: "We live hockey from the cradle"
  • Cycling: Carlos Coloma and Rocío del Alba, the medalist and his pupil: "I have not seen anything like it"
  • Gymnastics: Gymnast Néstor Abad: how to be a father twice hung on rings
  • Horse Riding Fiontini and Severe Jury: A very diva mare and a rider with fifth sense
  • Taekwondo.Jesús Tortosa, when taekwondo is the family: "It was the plug-in, everyone expected me to lose"
  • Climber. Alberto Ginés and the two miracles that bring Spain closer to a climbing medal: "He is a skier in the Sahara"
  • Beach volleyball. Two warriors in the arena and a psychologist coach: "Beach volleyball is not just party"

A corridor of only 100 meters from the High Performance Center (CAR) of Sant Cugat requires half an hour if you go along with the water polo player Blai Mallarach and the former gymnast Esther Escolar . "How are you? How are the children doing?" Asks everyone, from the receptionist of the facilities to the cafeteria waiter, and it is not for less.

He has been doing concentrations in the center since he was 14 years old and she lived and studied here from 11 to 21. In the CAR they grew up and in the CAR they met. For those coincidences that make couples, they built the changing rooms of the outdoor pool inside the rhythmic gymnastics module and every afternoon Mallarach and his teammates interrupted the school's rehearsals with their jumps and screams.

"The troglodytes," the gymnast's coach called them and with one of those "troglodytes" she now shares a marriage and two three- and two-year-old children, Biel and Daniela . They were so close to the CAR that they now live only a few meters away: they can go for a walk. «Before there were no mobiles, there was no Netflix on the laptop, and when you had finished dinner you came to the cafeteria downtown to play football, watch TV or talk to someone from another sport to disconnect from yours. One summer, which is when we had more free time, we started dating, with 18 years, and so far, ”recalls Mallarach, who at 32 is in one of the best moments of his sports career.

The left-handed attacker is now one of the referents of Spain who points to a medalist at the Tokyo Olympic Games after the silver was hung at the last World Cup and in the last two Europeans. The gray times of the team are already behind. In the tournaments after his debut at the World Cup in Rome 2009, Mallarach lived through the national team, including "infumable" times.

«After the Rio Games, in 2016, I decided to leave it seriously. I had not turned 30, I was 28 or 29, but I had a bad time, things did not go well ... Good luck that I did not do it because now I enjoy again, to believe », confesses the waterpolista, with an experience in backpack that forced him to continue. His wife, Escolar, had to leave gymnastics soon, too soon, and his example forced the water polo player to try to enjoy his sport as much as possible, to squeeze it to the fullest.

An injury and an exile

Almudena Cid or Carolina Rodríguez teammate, Escolar debuted in an absolute World Cup at age 15 and had the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a dream when a knee injury took away the clubs, the tape, the ball and the hoop. He had just reached the age of majority and, although he tried to return in later years, in the end he had to give up gymnastics, CAR and, in short, almost everything he had lived since he was a child. Luckily, almost everything.

«I had a bad time, it was a very difficult time, but I had to face it with maturity. I tried to continue as a coach and it helped me a lot to start the relationship with Blai because I saw that there was life beyond the CAR, of gymnastics ... He was a very important support point for me then and, throughout his career, I have tried to be it for him too, ”says Escolar, and he has no reason. In 2012, when the crisis sank the wages of the Spanish water polo, Mallarach left first to Croatia and then to Greece always with Escolar. They could only return in 2016, when his cache had multiplied, and the family called.

Now, Mallarach settled in Atlètic Barceloneta, the children of both begin to flirt with the sport: the eldest, Biel, now nothing and asks for his hat, his ball. «He likes it very much and says he wants to play water polo, but he is still very small. I would love that both of you followed my steps because my experience in the sport has been very rewarding, ”reflects Mallarach, who played tennis with Tommy Robredo as a kid and continues a long family tradition in the water.

His grandfather, swimmer and basketball player, introduced the water polo in his town, Olot, with small parties in the Fluvià river, and his parents were also swimmers. Major winners can even show Escolar, whose father played in Second Division at Valencia Mestalla and Castellón. "Sport has its things, but it offers you wonderful relationships and difficult values ​​to find in other areas of life," she concludes, and with such a song of sport, love, the two say goodbye before facing another eternal corridor of only 100 meters in the CAR, your CAR.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • JJOO gymnastics
  • more sport
  • Water polo
  • sports

More sportFive sports duties for Irene Lozano

More sport Pedro Sánchez surprises the sport and places Irene Lozano at the head of the CSD

More sport: Russian gymnast Aleksandra Soldátova denies that she tried to commit suicide