He’s the star, and he likes it. She exalts her. The light cloud of clouds soaks the stadium, light. She breaks the embarrassment of Roman Sunday at dusk. The air is charged with electricity, a drug for sprinters and jumpers, short, intense efforts, dynamite muscles, which absorb and transform it. And the jumpers, privileged, and Ana Peleteiro with them, do not get wet. The platform on the hollow scaffolding is covered by the Olympic stand erected during the 1990 World Cup.
The perfect conditions. When she jumps, the state freezes. Like a queen. The one who dictates the rules. Here it is played as I say. She proclaims it. This is what Ana Peleteiro wants. That’s how her coach, Iván Pedroso, wants her. Her law: hit hard on the first jump. Put pressure on everyone, make them dance around you. Whether in life, in the networks, in the stadium. On the elevated catwalk, almost like a fashion show, which is the Olympic jumping platform, where in her first attempt she reaches 14.37 meters, and that she beats hop, the first jump, 21 centimeters from the line of the void that was previously made of plasticine. Then it continues, without losing any speed, step and jump. But that’s not enough. Neither did the second jump, closer to the board (14 centimeters), longer in the sand (14.46m). The ceremony of affirmation of the Tokyo medalist, the promotion of her as a favorite for the Paris Games and, incidentally, her first European title, demand something more. The Turkish Tugba Danismaz demands it, a force of nature who enormously lengthens her pace on the second jump and in her second attempt, a few minutes later, she breaks the national record of her country and places first, 14, 57m.
The best thing about the 24-year-old Turkish woman in her entire life is what is normal, the average thing about the 28-year-old Galician, who a few months ago, in Glasgow, flew up to 14.75m and in Tokyo 21, when she won bronze Olympian, jumped 14.87 meters.
Another test begins. The queen claims the throne. She attacks him with the same fierceness as on the networks, she, the influencer proud of her African blood whose rage has been fueled in recent days by the racist insults with which the hatersemboldened in the European electoral campaign, to their declared love for the orange-gold kit of the Spanish team.
While the others jump, Peleteiro sits next to Pedroso, who doesn’t stop talking to him. He motivates her, he demands her, he advises her. Technical tricks, mental tricks. Wasn’t he, perhaps, the one who guided Yulimar Rojas from Guadalajara to the moon, unattainable for all the invincible Venezuelans who recently broke their Achilles tendon?
Not long ago, Peleteiro stated that she only thinks, that she only works, that she only trains, thinking about being an Olympic champion, that life is worth nothing if it is not to compete and win, that only the titles are worth it. Pedroso listens to her and reinforces her. “She has always trained to do it well. And training alongside Yulimar has been essential. He had her there and saw her every day. She knows everything Yulimar did and where she fell.
But I have always told him that. Yulimar also started like this. Others beat him, but he had perseverance, perseverance, perseverance,” says Pedroso. “And the best thing about Yulimar is that he trusts me a lot. When you trust a person, things become easier for you. Ana trusts a lot too. She says that after becoming a mother she trusts even more. And in the end, she always tells me, you were right. It’s been, ever since she came in with me, it’s been like an experiment. I have gone little by little, I already know her, I already know what is good for her, I know what makes her sick. And everything is easier now with her.”
The great jumpers, Pedroso too, talk about the first jump to mark territory and the fifth to crush definitively. Peleteiro, his uncontrolled strength, so many emotions, his daughter Lúa who already talks and everything, so much love, does not wait for the fifth. Anger can do more. In the fourth comes the big jump. 14.85 meters. Incontestable. The second best of his life. The gold of Rome. And, there, nearby, the Eiffel Tower, Paris, the Games, are already beginning to signal him. And the queen, the best Spanish athlete, will not stop until she becomes an Olympic champion.
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