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Javier Sanchez
Updated Sunday, February 25, 2024-22:10
Interview Miguel Indurain: "I don't play to imagine myself in the current peloton"
Interview Martín Fiz: "It is very painful that they mistrust you just because you are Spanish"
«It makes me sad because I like golf a lot, but I don't blame myself for anything.
I gave it my all and it just didn't work out.
Being a champion is very difficult.
"I didn't have the talent of my father, but no one has the talent of my father," acknowledges Severiano Ballesteros
' son
,
Javier Ballesteros
, who last year left professional golf after nine seasons trying without success: his best position. In the world ranking it was 1,505.
«I competed until I was 21 years old, always in the amateur category.
Professional cycling was not for me, I had no legs.
There are some that are touched by a wand, they are very good and that is why they are there.
It wasn't my case.
"That is not inherited," admits Miguel Indurain's son, Miguel Indurain junior, after a short career: he was Navarra junior champion, ran for the Caja Rural under-23 team and then left.
«I defended myself, but only to be a good youth.
I never really had options to make a living from athletics.
Very soon I saw that I was not going to become a supercrack like my father, that that was not my path," accepts Martín Fiz's son, Alex Fiz, who as a middle distance runner ran in events throughout Castilla y León from the age of 14 to 18 years old, but he didn't know the stadiums.
The three, Javier Ballesteros, Miguel Indurain junior and Alex Fiz, followed in the footsteps of their parents, observing the sky in golf, cycling and athletics and staying on the ground before takeoff.
In Spanish sport there are examples of the opposite, such as
Manolo Sanchís
or the
Hernangómez brothers
, but these three confirm that talent is not always in the genes and they agree on something even more important: that nothing happens because it is like that.
Despite being the children of who they were and staying far from the achievements of their parents, the three continue to practice golf, cycling and athletics for pleasure with childhood as a happy, constructive, free memory.
"I'm a fan of your videos"
«My father never forced me to play golf.
When
Jannik Sinner
won the last Australian Open he thanked his parents for letting him choose a sport and I was the same lucky.
In fact I played soccer for a year.
But in Pedreña I spent every afternoon and every weekend on the course and I fell in love with golf.
My father always told me that becoming a professional would be difficult.
I tried to make my way, I worked very hard, but in the end it didn't turn out as I expected," recalls Javier Ballesteros, who studied Law at the Complutense University of Madrid and now works in an athlete representation company, All in Sports.
At 33 years old, he keeps his father's memory very alive through the Severiano Ballesteros Foundation despite his death 12 years ago.
«My shame is not having seen him play his best golf.
Of course I've seen his videos, I'm a fan of his videos, and he was magical, unique, unrepeatable, but I couldn't see him shine on a field.
I also have his example very present.
Around 2000, when I was nine or ten years old, my father had been playing poorly for some time, but he got up every day at six in the morning to train in the gym.
For me it was hilarious, before going to school I would go down with him and entertain him, but now I think about it and say: 'What need did I have?'
He had already been number one, he had already won five majors, he could no longer find his game and also early every day," says Ballesteros Jr., who, yes, in 2006, was able to have the pleasure of acting as his father's caddy in his last British Open.
Years later, in 2014, he turned professional, played a few rounds with
Tiger Woods
or
José María Olazábal
and
Miguel Ángel Jiménez
and there were those who thought they saw the great Seve in his swing.
But that, he assures, did not affect him.
«All children want to be like their father, but I always knew how to separate my dream from reality.
I know that physically I look alike and I have some similar gestures, but I never noticed the pressure of being his son.
In fact, if I'm honest, it was an advantage for my career because thanks to my last name they invited me to tournaments that I would never have been able to access based on level," concludes Javier Ballesteros in a confession that is repeated by the other two interviewees: if there were comparisons, there were no They were to blame for not reaching the summit.
"I didn't feel pressure, I enjoyed the bike"
«I never experienced anything strange either, no pressure or anything.
They were also different times, there were no social networks, we did not know the opinions of others as much.
I would go to the races, do my thing and come home.
Nothing else.
He didn't pay attention to other things.
“I simply enjoyed riding my bike,” notes Miguel Indurain Jr., who, like Javier Ballesteros, has finally managed to combine work and passion.
Graduated in Business Administration and Management, for six years he has been in charge of the Giant store in Palma de Mallorca, where the majority of customers already know him and he is Miguel, simply, not the son of the legend.
At 28 years old, he has not pursued the dream of devoting himself to cycling for several years, but he continues pedaling every other Sunday and Sunday too.
«When I left the competition I tried to put aside the bike, try other things, but it lasted six months.
My father never insisted on the bicycle, I played football until I was 12, but it tired me and I got hooked on pedaling," explains who, although he doesn't do it, could boast of having appeared in Marca or L'Equipe before even step into the nursery.
In the 1996 Tour de France the peloton passed through Pamplona as a tribute to his father and he was the protagonist, a cute eight-month-old baby, protected with his white Banesto cap.
Unfortunately, like Ballesteros, he was also unable to see his father's best performances.
«But I have seen something on YouTube, it is clear.
I have seen the video of the climb to Plagne in 1995, when he cut
Zulle
, several times," he reveals.
Three years ago, the two, father and son, competed together in the Titan Desert, a mountain bike race through the desert, and the experience was surprising: "I saw him, almost 60 years old, and thought: 'How can he Could it be that he walks so much?'
Watching him pedal is incredible.
When I go home we go out to train together and we always have fun because we are similar.
"Now we are both getting older and worse at the same time."
Father and son, learning from each other, training together.
"We weren't traveling, I didn't want any trouble"
This experience is repeated in all cases, including that of Alex Fiz, despite the fact that his father continues to win marathons and half marathons all over the world at 60 years old.
To follow him you have to be very fit, but now everything is enjoyment.
«Now I have been able to travel with him and it is nice.
When he competed in World Cups and European Championships it was something else.
We almost never accompanied him because he wanted to isolate the family, he didn't want to upset us if it went wrong, make us all go through that moment," recalls Alex Fiz, 31, who studied business management and financial management and works as an accountant at the company Kliner. .
Like Javier Ballesteros and Miguel Indurain junior, he started in soccer and ended up late in his father's sport by his own choice, even against family wishes.
«I think my father thought that in athletics they could put more pressure on me, give me that label, and that's why he preferred football.
In some races I did sense stares, maybe he conditioned me a little, but I never felt real pressure.
I didn't have the level for that," analyzes Fiz, who, in fact, goes further: "Looking back, sometimes I think that my father could have pushed me more.
I could have started athletics earlier, I could have put in more hours.
But I also understand it.
I was afraid that the last name would weigh on me and affect me on a personal level.
"It was a decision based on that father's love."