Olympic Games Damián Quintero, a silver against the pressure of the "safe medal"
Sandra Sánchez The intrahistory of a gold without past or future: an anniversary, many 'burpees' and some suspicions
Karate An imaginary rival, three minutes, seven judges and not a failure: this is kata, the form of karate in which Spain is sweeping
Show must go on
, they imposed on
Simone Biles
before the big date of her life at the
Tokyo Olympics
, in which she exploded. Because the great heroine, raised above good and evil, was nothing more than a formidable athlete devoid of the armor that up to that moment had allowed her to advance. A person, after all. No more no less. Anxiety, a subject that was previously taboo or went unnoticed, is now at the center of interest, as evidenced by the commemoration
of World Mental Health Day today
.
The house of cards falls, again and again, taking away the stability of the great elite athletes.
To avoid this problem,
Pablo del Río
, the psychologist of the Spanish Olympians
, has worked for more than 30 years
.
His work takes place at the High Performance Center in Madrid.
"You have five weeks left for the World Cup, you cannot disappoint yourself and do the paripe, don't screw me. You have to go and win it because you know that in the future you will only remember success. You have to push whatever it takes," he said. del Rio openly blurts out
Damián Quintero
, one of his outstanding students in his small office in the presence of EL MUNDO.
Del Río and Quintero talk.Javier Barbancho WORLD
On August 6, her life changed with a silver medal preceded by a great mental load: "It was a five-year delivery." He did not forget that bad moment even while enjoying a vacation. "We were in the Olympic Village and we were hallucinating about Biles, but the fact is that from Spain the circus that is generated in some Games is ignored. I had been hearing for five months that I was a sure medal and it made me scare the day before."
Before his great opportunity in the biggest competition, Quintero felt, for the first time, a certain fear of getting on the tatami, where he had already won more than
100 international medals
: "It was a very hard afternoon because I was left alone, I ate, and I called my wife attacked three times without really knowing what to do. The moment you tell yourself that you can't fail, you've screwed up. They demand of us, the expectations they put on us are a backpack full of stones. "
Serene, and with the experience of six Olympic events in his suitcase, the psychologist became, once again, the antidote to avoid the debacle. "The trip to the pavilion was long ... to paint it beautiful, but we arrived and began to talk about
Messi
and his departure from
Barça
, to try to give him normality. The change was brutal. The problem is that society takes athletes and it makes them extraterrestrial. They are people with their fears and emotions, not machines, "says the specialist.
The line that separates success and failure is finer than one might imagine, which is why psychological monitoring becomes as essential a piece as technical or physical care.
"You can train a perfect kata, but if you do not have mental goals with your team, you are lost. I was lucky enough to think about removing that nonsense that sometimes we have in our head that working with a psychologist seems like you are pallá, but it's the opposite, "says
Quintero
.
Damián Quintero in the consultation.Javier Barbancho WORLD
The extreme situations do not know surnames, be it
Biles
or any other. The mental demand is maximum. Having a guardian angel by his side has ended up tilting the balance towards the positive, although there are always days that he prefers to forget, even one of the best karate men in history. "Either you sink or you start looking for the good part and you focus on thinking about where you can improve. You have to avoid by all means thinking about possible failure or looking for excuses. Many times we look for them to avoid giving the image of weak and then it comes Pablo and slaps us. "
The reality to which you return your trusted person is as harsh as life itself.
Quintero
, at 37, is already thinking about retirement. Luckily for him, with aeronautical engineering in his trophy case, that cliff becomes a "heated pool that he can jump into without fear." This, however, is out of the ordinary in the vast majority of cases that have passed through
Del Río's
hands.
.
"The reality is poorly focused for athletes. It is thought that the withdrawal has to be prepared a year before and it must be done from the day the child plants the first foot in the CAR. You have to plan, train and study. If they finish and they do not have their training, they will be in worse condition than anyone. No matter how many medals you have won, the loaf of bread costs you the same in the supermarket and they do not give you a special price for being an Olympic runner-up, "warns the psychologist.
The lesson has been learned by
Quintero
, but from time to time no one is bothered by a reminder.
That "little boy who thought he was the king of the mambo in Madrid" ended up becoming the hero thanks to the lighthouse that has helped him to light the way in a short but intense and above all, healthy Olympic career.
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