With the sport wrapped in a web of restrictions generated by the coronavirus, Esther Guerrero and her coach, Joan Lleonart, have once again demonstrated their ability to escape discouragement and on Tuesday organized a brand check on the athletics tracks of ‘Olot. And there, at the Tussols-Basil stadium, probably the most charming track in Catalonia, Guerrero made the best mark in Spain of all time in the unusual distance of 2,000 meters. With a mark of 5: 41.30, Guerrero lowered by six seconds the previous mark held by Julia Vaquero for more than two decades in Nice. The new demonstration of desire to never stop growing from the athlete from Banyoles, who between 2014 and 2017 already had another Spanish record in a non-Olympic distance (500 meters), continues to pair Esther Guerrero with the great names in the usual Girona athletics. Anna Maria Molina and her numerous Spanish records for pentathlon and weightlifting, Encarna Granados and her best state records underway or Quima Casas and her groundbreaking records in a race as agonizing as the 100 kilometers.
“I felt fantastically good. It has been fantastic. I am very excited and very, very, happy “, explained after the race, Esther Guerrero, in a statement to Agencia EFE in which she admitted that she hoped to be able to surpass the mark of Julia Vaquero but” for nothing , do it for seven seconds ». Olympic at the Rio de Janeiro Games, Guerrero has not stopped growing since he started working with Joan Lleonart, first dominating all state championships in 800 meters and then making the jump to 1,500, where he is the current Champion of Spain outdoors and indoors. The Tokyo Olympics, now postponed to the summer of 2021, by an Esther Guerrero (Banyoles, 1990) who, two decades later, follows the tradition of athletes such as Encarna Granados (Sarrià de Ter, 1972), bronze at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, which had the Spanish records in both the 3,000-meter track and the 10-kilometer road race, the event that still gave him a Girona medal in a world championship. .
The 43.21 in the 10 km march with which Encarna Granados hung the silver medal at the World Championships in Stuttgart behind a Finn (Sari Essayah) and an Italian (Ileana Salvador) were the Spanish record for five years . Maria Vasco broke the record for Granados in 1998. In fact, the 43.21 in Stuttgart was the second time Granados broke the best Spanish mark of all time that summer. Two months before the World Cup, Granados had already become the state record holder with about 43.54 surpassing the old mark held by another historical name of the Spanish march, María Reyes Sobrino, since 1990. The Spanish records of ‘Encarna Granados was not limited to her favorite event, the 10-kilometer walk, because the athlete from Sarrià de Ter was also the Spanish record holder in track, both in the 3,000-meter run and the 10,000-meter run.
And if Encarna Granados broke molds in the world of marching, she herself explains that when she began to practice it almost everyone looked at her in surprise, another pioneer is Quima Casas (Sant Hilari, 1951). The athlete based in Sant Feliu de Pallerols was the first woman in Spain to finish the marathon in less than three hours and, at record levels, also leads in the state lists thanks to the three consecutive times she overcame the best mark of all time in the longest race of all, the 100 kilometers: 8 hours and 38 minutes in 1988, 8 hours 34 minutes in 1991 and 8 hours and 27 minutes in 1992. This last mark, achieved in Palamós in the framework of the “Margarita Frigola Memorial” was not fought until twenty-two years later (Cristina González in 2014 in Santander).
A very special case is that of Anna Maria Molina (Girona, 1950). Advanced in its time, Molina is still considered today as the best specialist in combined tests that has ever been in Spain. Died at the age of 29 in a car accident, Molina competed at a time when Spanish sport, especially women’s sport, was living absolutely behind closed doors and the Girona native never had the opportunity to develop an international career. However, and counting that a knee injury is forcing her to focus only on weight in the final stretch of her career, Anna Maria Molina broke the Spanish pentathlon record eleven times between 1967 and 1970, one 110 meter hurdles (1971) and fourteen times the weightlifting between 1969 and 1974. His last official mark (14.13) was not surpassed until 1984, five years after his death by the consequences of a traffic accident at the entrance to Girona in August 1979.
.
