Athletics, in suspense by Jordi Llopart, first Spanish medal in the Olympic Games

The Catalan marcher Jordi Llopart is torn between life and death after suffering a heart attack at age 68. The Spanish Athletics Federation announced his sudden death early in the evening, but hours later his family denied this point. “Jordi Llopart, although in a deep coma, is alive, admitted to the hospital, pending the transplant service,” read the statement signed by his brother Moisés. The specialized portal ‘soycorredor.es’ specified that the athlete would be in an irreversible state and that “he will be operated on to remove his organs».

Llopart is part of that imaginary of national sports, that group of pioneers where legends such as Severiano Ballesteros, Manolo Santana, Bahamontes, Ángel Nieto or Paco Fernández Ochoa appear, among others. He had the honor of opening a door that until 1980 had remained sealed for Spanish athletics, that of climbing an Olympic podium with a specialty that from his silver would be synonymous with sure success in the great championships.

Born in 1952 in El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona), he competed in three editions of the Olympic Games: Moscow’80, Los Angeles’84 and Seoul’88. He is also a technical sanitary assistant, graduated in Tourism and studied as an officer in Graphic Arts. But his passion was athletics. He was always a member of the La Seda Cultural Sports Group and his coach was his father, Moises Llopart, Except for the two stages in which it was directed in Mexico by the Polish Jerzy Hausleberg.

In Moscow, at the Misha Bear Games, the boycott of the United States and its allied countries, Llopart lived his moment of glory and celebrated his second place in the 50-kilometer march behind the German Hartwig Gauder. But it was not his only or his first historical achievement, because he also won the first Spanish gold medal in a European, in Prague (1978).

His sports career was much longer, but a chronic kidney disease prevented him from achieving greater achievements. Seventh at the Los Angeles Games (1984) and twelfth at the Seoul Games (1988), always at 50 kilometers, he retired in 1990 to later dedicate himself to training. In fact, his pupil Daniel Plaza was champion of the 20 kilometers at the Barcelona Olympic Games (1992).

His following years were always related to the world of the march, either in Spain or in Mexico. There he worked for four years as a technical marching consultant. But after having brought the brothers Isaac and Ever Palma to the London Games, in 2012 he saw the Mexican government terminate his contract. And at that point, the problems and media oblivion that this athletics myth experienced in recent years began.

In 2014, Llopart explained to EL CORREO that he was surviving with 426 euros of unemployment because “when I decided to go home I realized that all the doors I touched were closing on me. There was no work and after almost two years things look worse and worse, and of course, you get overwhelmed and even suffer from depression. But I am clear that I am not going to give up », explained the walker, father of a girl who is now 10 years old and another 6.

At the end of 2018, Llopart was part of the Olympic Committee’s tribute to the athletes of the 1980 Games. There he told that he was already retired and that things had not improved much economically, since this myth of the march had to survive with a monthly pension of 746 euros.