Eight points and four rebounds in 17 minutes on the court are the not inconsiderable numbers that the number 22 of the GEiEG Uni signed on Saturday on the CBS Barça track. A player who, at the age of 23, has already seen them in all their colors, and who that afternoon picked up the prize for never having given up, not even when the doctors recommended that she leave basketball for good and enter the world. because it seemed impossible for them to overcome the aftermath of a serious car accident he suffered two years ago in the U.S., where he had gone to study. “When I heard that, I told myself I wouldn’t stop until I could play again,” said Iho López from Blanes. She has achieved this, and in one category, the Women’s League 2, which should serve as a springboard to return to the first team of Uni Girona, with which she made her debut in the elite in 2014, under the orders of Anna Caula. “I still see this far, now what I have to do is keep improving and growing with GEiEG Uni, training with both teams, and offering my best version.”
The American adventure earned him a degree in Computer Engineering from Florida State. In sports he had a promising career in the NCAA until an accident (which caused him a fractured femur and other injuries) cut his progression. He would have liked to be an airplane pilot “but playing is very difficult to achieve.” He now finds the time to combine training with Uni and GEiEG Uni, and to study two distance masters, one on Computational Fluid Dynamics (“he is focused on chemical engineering and what he does is see how fluids affect different structures ”), and another in Aerospace Engineering, which should serve to make her an aerospace engineer and work on aircraft, designing and adapting them to technological evolution.
The consequences of the traffic accident two years ago in the US were considerable. He ruptured the C2 and L1 vertebrae, a rib and the femur. They later discovered that he also had damaged the labral of the hip. The first operation was not enough, Iho López was still in trouble, and that was how they found him, a year later, with a broken tongue. That was the hardest moment of this story. “I was told that I would not play basketball again and that having a degree in Computer Engineering, all I had to do was go to work, which would make me more money,” he recalls. He did not accept this diagnosis and never gave up. Neither in the classroom nor on the court, where he finally picked up the award on Saturday. Now it all starts again, for her. At home, too.
The Girona pivot was discharged in the middle of last week. I knew, therefore, that I had a lot of numbers to play an official match again on Saturday, on the CBS Barça court, where GEiEG Uni fell in overtime (79-73). He explains that he had “very good feelings, I felt very good”, and thanks his teammates for the support they have given him since the start of the pre-season. “Even a player told me that she was more nervous than me,” exclaims the Blanes center-back. Nor does he remember when it had been his last official confrontation. In fact, if it will be two years now from the accident, much more from the last performance: “We started the league that week and obviously I already missed it, so surely my last game before Saturday should have been May or April 2018 ”.
For his coach at GEiEG Uni, Joan Pau Torralba, the return of Iho López is great news. “We are very happy for her and it’s good that we can get players back,” he said. The team could also add a new piece this week, according to coach Carla Jou. “We are satisfied that Iho is back on track and at a good level. Let’s add pieces and see if we add Carla “, he underlined. Meanwhile, Iho continues to play from the ground up, making good on his motto that every day you have a chance to eat the world. The white pivot, of the 1997 generation, one of the most prolific in Spanish women’s basketball, with milestones such as the treble in training categories with the Spanish national team (gold in U16, U18 and U20), continues to make her dreams come true. It must be a matter of time, then, to see it designing, or who knows if flying, planes.
.
