A life without shocks will easily be happy, but sometimes there are collapses and reconstructions and happiness awaits later. Let them tell María Pérez. In 2018, when she was a child, she was the European champion and the future was hers. She marches her, at her feet. The medals, the contracts, even the fame. But then came stomach problems, her wife’s cancer and several disqualifications because her technique was no longer valid for the judges. And she had to reinvent herself. Until this Sunday. Five years after her first success, Pérez was proclaimed world champion in the 20-kilometer walk and gave Spain her second gold medal in Budapest.
His tears on the very finish line showed that the process was hard, also that it made sense. So resounding was his superiority that Pérez was able to devote the last 500 meters to celebrating; to shake the hand of all the public; to choose which Spanish flag to wave; to kiss his wife, Something Morillas, present in Budapest; to thank his coach, Jacinto Garzon; to train at a slow, very slow goal. A joy. Then she burst into tears, so much so that she had passed. Only when the Australian entered Jemima Montagsilver, and the Italian Antonella Palmisanoa friend of hers, the Spanish woman recovered and complied with the protocol: the photos, the televisions.
“Álvaro put pressure on me,” he confessed in the mixed zone, about his compatriot’s gold the day before, in the same test. He saw him in the hall of the hotel of the selection and understood that the tactic that he planned was correct. As alvaro martin, María Pérez broke at kilometer 15 in the most violent way and never looked back. Until then she was in a dangerous group of eight marchers, with names like Peruvian Kimberly García or the two Chinese, Zhenxia Ma y Jiayu Yang. As soon as he demarcated, the race was over. His escape, beyond the victory, kept a detail that Pérez and his team celebrated even more: he did not receive a single foul, just a warning.
After being expelled last year in both the Eugene World Cup and the Munich European Championship, an immense joy. From October to January, Pérez did not leave, sunk, discouraged, but her coach insisted and insisted on her recovery. Garzón asked half the world for advice, rethought Pérez’s technique, and with the help of family and friends he presented the idea to him. She still could. She had plenty of talent and drive for her to be a world champion, even a record holder. Barely eight months later, the Spaniard has achieved everything and still has left: on Thursday she will compete in the 35-kilometer walk and she can hang another gold. “I’m not going to have a glass of cava. I still have things to do here,” Pérez warned.