Lucas Sáez-Bravo Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, March 14, 2024-22:41

"Torné, Torné is the man," say those who speculate on the options of Spanish judo, always so vigorous, but so Olympically happy, since Sydney 2000 without a medal.

Another pupil of

Quino Ruiz

, from that successful factory (

Niko Sherazadishvili, Fran Garrigós

...) hidden in a corner of Brunete.

A shy but determined boy, so sure of himself that not even in the middle of his particular ordeal did he stop believing.

«I never thought about throwing in the towel.

I always saw myself with confidence that I was going to arrive.

"That it was just a stone in the way," says David now, who suddenly received everything that he had been pursuing since at the age of six his parents signed him up for the extra-school judo school in La Canonja.

2023 was so full that hearing what was achieved - a continental silver, number two in the Olympic ranking in its -66 kilo category - gives you "goosebumps."

«It has been a dream.

Because he looked at the previous year and he didn't even appear in the ranking.

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The reason was his left knee, cursed before, "now perfect."

Six operations no less.

Three meniscus, the first at 18 years old.

"After a competition in France, we stopped at a gas station, and when I put my foot down my knee didn't straighten and I fell face-first to the ground," he recalls now with a half smile.

Another three cruciate ligament injuries, when he tore it after the pandemic.

«I had surgery, I tried to compete again, but my knee was going.

I didn't want to know anything, I kept moving forward, nine months like this, I had other injuries as a result of that... I even won the Spanish Championship.

The next day I went to the doctor..."

And back to the operating room.

García Torné poses for EL MUNDO. SERGIO GONZÁLEZ VALEROMUNDO

«It was an ordeal.

It's hard mentally.

After the first operation I did not have the help of any psychologist.

My rivals overtook me, it was hard.

I took the second one differently.

If I have returned once... And now I did have help, it was key.

I had more experience, I saw it from a different perspective.

"I learned," reflects the Catalan, for eight years at the Quino Dojo, although it was thanks to the financial help of his parents.

«I don't do this for money, until this year I have practically not earned anything.

You watch MMA or other sports.

A third-ranked soccer player earns more than me, who is top five in the world.

But it is what we have chosen, what we like," he says now that the future smiles on him, that he glimpses the Games for which he has a guaranteed ticket and does not sense a ceiling.

«In the middle of the injury he thought: 'I am better than these.'

I have always trusted.

And I see myself with an Olympic medal," he says, having just arrived from three weeks in Japan, the cradle of his sport, where he faced

Hifume Abe

, the absolute dominator of his weight, with whom he has never faced in official tournament.

And he didn't look far away.

«We didn't teach anything, but it didn't impress me, it didn't seem like anything out of this world.

We both know that sooner or later we are going to face each other.

He hasn't lost for a long time, he won the last Games, the World Cup.

Tournament that goes, tournament that he wins.

On the Champ de Mars in Paris, so far from the nightmares of his knee, David will face that day of pure tension that his competitions entail with the calm of the one who left everything behind, listening to Jarabe de Palo between combat and combat and trusting in his judo .

«Where I am best is shooting against the opponent, which is still the goal of our sport.

What is worse for me is just the opposite.

The people who are going to get sanctions, who block... And I think that over time I have become stronger in the head, I am able to think.

The mental factor in judo is 70% and it is what is most difficult, making decisions at 180 heartbeats and with two sanctions... ".