News : The ‘B’ face of emerging Spain

The Kadriorg Stadium in Tallinn, in Estonia, witnessed the best U23 European Championship in history by the Spanish team. 15 medals and 29 finalists, surpassing the 10 medals of Amsterdam 2001 and equaling in finalist positions those obtained in the last edition of Gävle 2019, thus occupying an excellent fourth position in a medal table that at times it came to lead.

While the Higher Sports Council or the very Secretary of State for Sports, José Manuel Franco, echoed the success achieved in Tallinn, a European champion like Álvaro Martin, put black on white on the current system of federal aid to these promising athletes. Specifically, denounced the lack of direct aid from the Spanish Athletics Federation even as athletes with the status of medalists or finalists in this championship.

And, of course, in a climate of collective euphoria over the results obtained that invites some optimism about the future of the “new” national athletics, the tweets of this political science graduate and established athlete provide a very interesting and worrying point of view. -, to report a harsh reality in the often-unknown athletic backroom.

In a sport with a surplus of passion and scarce resources, what the Extremaduran walker has done is to give visibility to a frayed aid system that has been hit by years of cuts, where the current results could rather be attributed to a “spontaneous generation” thanks to the effort of athletes and coaches and not so much to an institutional and federative commitment that facilitates the transition to professionalism.

And it is that performance and preparation aids, as well as the identification and retention of talent is something that usually looks good as a motto in this country (also included in the memorandum “Development Strategy of the RFEA-Horizon 2030-“) but once he gets to the office, he tends to get misplaced under a mountain of papers.

Hopefully now it does not happen and this emerging athletics has come to stay because this sport is very ungrateful and that damn day comes when, like unrequited love, one can get tired of moving mountains in exchange for nothing.

Well, unfortunately, they have made a medal or finalist WITHOUT ANY HELP. Only with his honor and character.

But this is the hardest? No, because now the worst is still coming.

– Álvaro Martín Uriol (@Alvaroatletismo) July 12, 2021