Jordi Llopart, the first Olympic medalist in Spanish athletics, died in 1980

Jordi Llopart, first Olympic medalist in Spanish athletics (silver in 50 km march in Moscow’80), died yesterday at the age of 68 yesterday at the Germans Trias i Pujol hospital in Badalona where he had been in a deep coma pending the transplant service since Tuesday “, as confirmed by his family.

Jordi Llopart, a pioneer of the Spanish march together with Josep Marín, was born on May 5, 1952 in El Prat de Llobregat (Baix Llobregat). It competed in three editions of the Olympic Games: Moscow’80, Los Angeles’84 and Seoul’88. At the 1980 Moscow event he won silver in the 50 km march. It was the first time a Spanish athlete had climbed the podium in an Olympic event. In Los Angeles’84 he was seventh, and in Seoul’88, thirteenth. He also took part in three World Championships, always in the 50 km march. He was in Helsinki’83, Rome’87 and Tokyo’91, and took part in four European Championships, between 1978 and 1990, and won gold on September 2, 1978 in Prague -first gold medal of a Spanish athlete-, the sixth place in Athens’82 and the ninth in those of Stuttgart’86. In addition, it disputed thirteen World-wide Cups (1973-1991).

Jordi Llopart withdrew from the competition after the fourth position in the Spanish Marching Championship, in March 1992 in Badalona, ​​with which he was left out of the Olympic team for Barcelona’92. He then began his career as a coach, in which he had as disciples Dani Plaza -Olympic champion in Barcelona’92-, Basilio Labrador, Jesús Ángel García Bragado-1993 world champion and runner-up in 1997 and 2001-, Teresa Linares, the Spanish nationalized Polish Beata Betlej and several Japanese marchers.

The curse of the 80’s podium

The death of Jordi Llopar has completed the curse of the 50 km podium in Moscow 80: forty years later, none of the three who stepped on him survives.

East German Hartwig Gauder, Llopart and the Soviet Yevgeny Ivchenko – gold, silver and bronze – have died at a relatively young age, under the age of 70. Gauder and Llopart, who were also European champions (1986 and 1976, respectively) in the same discipline (the German, also world champion), have died just seven months apart and for the same official cause, a heart attack.

The Germanic’s life ended last April 22 in Ertfur, when he was 65 years old. Llopart was born in El Prat de Llobregat (in 1952, he survived for just over half a year). His death occurred at the age of 68. Of the three Moscow medalists in 1980, Ivchenko was the first to lose his life and the one who did so at an earlier age, on June 2, 1999, at the age of 60.

In Moscow, Gauder crossed the finish line with a time of 3:49:24 -Olympic record- followed by Llopart, who with a time of 3:51:25 won the first Olympic medal in Spanish athletics. With them climbed the podium Yevgeny Ivchenko, who proved a record of 3:56:32. Josep Marín, who had been fifth in 20 km six days earlier, finished sixth.