Back to Madrid, to the place where he reappeared after destroying his knee. “I want to feel the love,” Carolina Marín said on March 25, 2022, just a month before making her debut at the Europeans held at the Gallur Municipal Center. “Very happy to be here and with more desire than nerves, because there are still two days and training sessions to do. Competing in Spain makes me very excited, because I usually do it little, and it is always nice to be surrounded by family and friends”, he started today on the same stage, with the slopes in which she was proclaimed continental champion for the sixth time in a row in sight. “When I went to China as a child, 12 or 13 years old, I would find people playing badminton in the street. I am very excited that now it also happens in Spain, when I go out for a walk with my dog in Casa de Campo or in schools. They labeled me playing in the pandemic, even more than me, that I couldn’t,” he added at a presentation ceremony sponsored by Iberdrola and hosted by comedian and screenwriter Carolina Iglesias.
In a year, fortunately, things have changed a lot. Then, Marín announced her reappearance after eleven months away from the competition, after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament and the internal and external menisci of his left knee, the injury that closed the doors of the Tokyo Olympics. This time, it also heralded a comeback, but much kinder. In it all england openTen days ago, the woman from Huelva was forced to retire due to a flu process. It was the start of an intense tour from which she also had to erase Switzerland.
In Madrid, it will be. And with guarantees. “I’m much better now. I have gone through a rather important viral process. I still have a cough and runny nose, but we have remedied the fever. The bodily sensations have also improved, I already feel stronger. The pavilion is the same. The stands are a little further away than normal and there is a track where the steering wheel flies a bit more, but this is getting used to. With great desire ”, he detailed the complications of the last weeks. “I have spent a difficult year and a half because of my knee. I had to accept that pain. As of December, we have touched all the keys (new templates, infiltrations, removing liquid…). Finally, we have managed to remove all that pain and I live badminton in a different way, enjoying it”, he added, going from the last weeks to the last months, very positive in his recovery.
In the capital, in a new tournament (Super 300) licensed for the next three years, he arrives with everything he is: “Innovative, brilliant, exemplary, a reference, determined, rebellious, gold, a fighter and authentic”, as it was defined after a game with the attendees as a television program. “Yes, of course I doubt the decisions I make. A self doubt. Especially when you come back from an injury. You doubt yourself, the process, being competitive. They are complicated processes, because you never know if you are going to play badminton again. And then, at what level. I have gone through two quite serious processes, but we continue to be competitive, sacrificing ourselves and we have a great goal in mind, those Games (Paris 2024) for which there is a year and little left. With desire and motivation to complete all this path ”, he developed in relation to his capacity for determination. “Not even with my grandmother did I want to lose ludo!”, She joked.
little mcenroe
As a child, Carolina was a bit “rebellious.” “My mother called me (John) McEnroe, because I have broken many rackets. In the CAR, I begin to take authority with myself, because I couldn’t continue like this. I got a sponsor who gave me the racks and I began to take care of them as if they were my treasure. When my parents compared them to me, with everything that entailed, I paid for the frustration with them, instead ”, he revealed in the middle of the game. “Screams are the expression of my emotions. It is the competitive gene and the desire to win. There is the strategy, which is the most important thing, but I am authentic, different from other rivals, in certain aspects”, she completed about a way of being that turns her into a hurricane on the track.
Outside of it, it is also unique. She wakes up at 7:30. At 9:00, she starts training. From 9:00 to 11:00 she exercises on the track; then an hour of physical. She comes home, eats and rests. At 2:30 p.m., she returns to the pavilion until 5:30 p.m. She half badminton, half fitness. And then physio until 20:00. “I start at 8:00 and finish at 20:00. I have little room for naps (laughs) ”, she would let go. “To fight is not to take a nap,” Iglesias rounded off. “It is what athletes dream of, when they think big. ‘I have come to win the gold,’ I said. So it was. I only saw (Ruth) Beitia win gold and the basketball team win bronze, when I had already achieved my goal. I was totally focused on it. The months before, I did a lot of visualization of the important moments of the matches, of doubts and fears, ”he recalled about his Olympic gold in Rio. “Sometimes we think we are aliens and we can handle everything, but we are not. Now, in Madrid, one puts pressure on oneself when playing at home, and that has to be managed a lot, ”he said to return to the present, increasingly golden. More and more her.
