Javier Sanchez

Updated Friday, February 2, 2024-00:36

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His father,

Daniele Strappato

, was an Italian rowing champion and was aiming for Olympic status. His mother,

Anna Garreta

, played field hockey in Terrassa. Thanks to her work, the couple met in his town, Ispra, near Varese, on the shores of Lago Maggiore, but the work ran out, she returned, they sent letters and, months later, they met "halfway." more or less”, in Cadaqués. We had to decide what to do, whether to stay together or not, where to live and, somehow, which country would win a medal at the Paris 2024 Games. How?

If they had chosen to start a family in northern Italy, possibly today their daughter

Júlia

would be a rower and a candidate for the Olympic podium with the Azzurri. But they decided to settle in Terrassa and that is why today their daughter Júlia is a reference for the Spanish field hockey team that is aiming for a surprise this summer. At the moment, they already have a place, obtained 15 days ago, this January, thanks to a goal on penalties by Strappato.

Gorka LoinazAraba

«I spend a lot of summers in Italy, with my father's family, but I have never taken up rowing. When I was little I combined hockey with soccer, I was there for four years, but in the end in a soccer game I asked for the change and said: 'I want the stick.' Hockey seems more complex to me, a greater challenge, more fun," explains Júlia Strappato in conversation with EL MUNDO in Terrassa where there are no houses without sticks. Strappato, in fact, has an uncle, Xavi Ribas, who won silver in the 2008 Tokyo Games; an aunt, Maite Garreta, who was also international; and cousins ​​in the lower categories of the team.

I was eight years old then. Do you remember watching the Olympic final that her uncle played in? No, I don't remember the final, but I do remember the reception they gave her. My uncle gave me the medal, which was very heavy and I thought: 'How cool it must be to win at the Games.'

And there it is. Since the change of coach last summer, with the arrival of the current one,

Carlos Cuesta

, Strappato has established herself as the starting midfielder, the one who distributes the ball. At 24 years old, with the national team since she was 19, Paris will be the place to shine and seek the second medal for the Spanish women's team in field hockey after the gold in Barcelona 1992. That is why both she and her teammates have sacrificed work and years career: concentrations are coming, many concentrations.

From Biomedicine to Interior Design

«In the Olympic year you have to live hockey 24 hours a day. We have all organized ourselves so as not to fail in the selection, in addition to continuing in our clubs. Hockey is an amateur sport, sometimes I have considered going out to play, but not now. I have left out subjects from the races and I have saved myself as much time as possible to be ready," explained the player from Junior de Sant Cugat, the current champion of the Iberdrola League.

Strappato started Biomedicine at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), but the future in a laboratory overwhelmed him and that is why he decided to change: now he is preparing to be an interior designer at the Escola Municipal d'Art i Disseny de Terrassa. "It was my hobby, I read a lot about interior design, I watched a lot of shows and in the end I thought: Why not," he comments on the recent change.

And a curiosity to finish: Why don't they ever let you choose the music in the locker room? [Laughs] That's because I'm the odd one out in the selection. I don't like reggaeton. I prefer music from the 70s, I listen to

Barry White, Gloria Gaynor, Bruce Springsteen

... It's what my mother listened to. When I was little, she always told me that the songs from before told stories and the ones from now don't and the truth is that she is right. Now we share the music we like.