Remember elena ruiz that in her room, when she was little, she hung a poster of Rose tarragon and the anecdote describes it. By triple departure Ruiz is young, very young, barely 18 years old, which is why his childhood idol is still only 30. Ruiz is a gunboat, like Tarragó, and, in fact, is his natural replacement in Spain. And Ruiz has lived water polo since she was a child because her mother was already playing, an unusual inheritance. The teenager, the pitcher, the passionate about water polo Elena Ruiz was chosen yesterday as MVP of the Fukuoka World Cup and that was surely the best news for the team after losing on penalties in the final against the Netherlands.
One defeat, another in the fight for gold -and there are already five between the World Cups and the Olympic Games-, which could not hide the fact that the team has a leader for many years. With Ruiz’s arm as an argument, Spain will be planted in the 2024 Paris Games in search of the victory that resists it, but it can also project itself in the 2028 Los Angeles Games, in the 2032 Brisbane Games and even in the Games 2036, wherever they are held. By then, surprising as it may seem, he will only be 32 years old.
His precocity hardly bears comparisons: if anything, in Spanish sport, with Ricky Rubio. Born in 2004 in Rubí, a municipality in the industrial zone that surrounds Barcelona, Ruiz started swimming at the age of four and, following in the footsteps of her sister Ariadne, also international in the World Cup, at seven he already jumped into water polo. Her mother had played at Club Natació Rubí and that is why it was not strange to see her in her lower categories. But it was strange, very strange, that she debuted in Division of Honor just the day before she turned 13 years old.
In the first year of ESO, with a cadet license, she was already a starter and, after the pandemic, while she was in her fourth year, she was the top scorer in the Spanish league. Then came the call from the selection. Despite playing in a modest club and his extraordinary youth, the coach, Mickey Father, he took her to the Tokyo 2020 Games and gave her a lot of minutes. While other players of her generation, like her sister Ariadna (2002), Cristina Nogué (2003), Nona Perez (2003), Paula Camus (2002) and the concierge Martina Terre (2002), they suffered to gain a foothold -and they are still at it- Ruiz was the leader from his debut.
He confirmed it in this Fukuoka World Cup. With an Olympic silver, a European and a Champions with Sabadell already in his record, he was the center of the Spanish attack along with Judith Forca, who with 24 goals finished as the tournament’s top scorer. «We lost the final, but I think we had a great championship. I am very proud of this silver. It is very important to me. It is the result of all the training and all the sacrifices we have made as a team,” Ruiz commented at the end of the decisive match. .