• Carmona. The athletic expert who lives on the street and writes from a public library: "He came almost every afternoon"
  • Athletics: The encyclopedia of athletics tweet lives on the street

Joaquín Carmona woke up on Monday being an anonymous face and a longed for name for the 16,000-odd followers of his prestigious Twitter account ( @ Jokin4318 ), where until March 15 he sat chair of athletics. In just one day, the scars on his life and face are no longer just a profile on social media. After the discovery of the blog La Bolsa del Corredor, the Partidazo de la Cadena Cope Y Radio Marca continued last night. Sitting on the steps of a Madrid park, he continued to crumble some of the details of a reality that no one suspected could hide behind those almost 25,000 users who now follow him.

"I have not tweeted for three months because I have no electricity and I have been homeless since 2008. A few months before I was in some apartments, in a hostel ... but let's say it did not work well," his story lit up on the radio microphones, under the night of the capital. "A series of circumstances came together and that's why I stayed as I am. I worked many hours in an ice cream kiosk and the City Council wanted me not to continue and I was left without doing anything and without the clients, which were the social relationships I had. I have not ordered on the street, I have worked with short postman contracts, but they do not give you for a room, "he adds.

That is why Joaquín Carmona lives on the street and, since the State of Alarma was decreed, he has no option or to distract himself (and distract) with what he likes most: athletics. "The rules of the State of Alarm are made for the majority, not for us. They forget those of us who are homeless. I sleep in a park, together with two mattresses and the last six years it has almost always been here. I clean myself in a house of baths of the City council and there I take a shower ", related last night.

"It filled me to think that he was a valid person"

And thanks to the walls and the wifi of a library, as EL MUNDO could verify, it has been turning a simple Twitter account into an encyclopedia for the most addicted to athletics. Times, videos, prints, ... A kind of digital tartan. "Normally, I would go to the library, document myself and tweet from the street with the library's wifi, sitting on the floor. It filled me to read people's reactions to make me think I was a valid person," he admitted in the Cope microphones.

Joaquín is 46 years old. He came to Madrid, coming from Zamudio, a town next to Lezama (Bilbao), with 19 and he has been athletics since 1983. "I have worked in various jobs. I started distributing advertising, I have worked in an ice cream parlor, in Correos ... Athletics is my favorite sport, "he explains.

On the same Monday, after learning of his situation, some of his already 25,000 Twitter followers started a collection to help him out. Even he himself gave a glimpse of light amid so much (and so unexpected) darkness. "I do not want to get my hopes up, but something related to athletics has come out," he settled with extreme caution. Because life, as you well know, can turn its back on you at any time.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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