One of the few issues on which there is unanimity in this country is about who is the best Spanish athlete of all time, Rafa Nadal, who has many similarities, many, with the number 1 of Andalusian sports, Carolina Marín. Both with a racket in hand. We can almost speak of parallel lives.
Plutarco published his Parallel Lives 19 centuries ago. The most famous is that of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. In his 25 works there was not a woman, not even Cleopatra, a contemporary of the Roman emperor.
We do include the best Spanish athlete of all time, Carolina Marín. No one in the history of badminton presents his record: one Olympic gold, three world championships and four Europeans. What Carolina really liked was dancing flamenco, but at the age of 12 she decided on badminton. And two years later He left his family in Huelva and went to Madrid to work with Fernando Ribas, a demanding coach. Left-handed and in a racket sport, he admires above all the best left-hander in the history of World tennis: Rafa Nadal.
The Mallorcan was also 12 years old when his father forced him to choose between football or tennis. Two years later his parents moved to Barcelona, and he stayed in Mallorca with his meticulous coach, his uncle Toni Nadal. In that year 2000 Nadal was the standard bearer of the first Davis Cup won by Spain.
He has helped win five more, with an 18-year-old showing against the United States. But not only the successes, both the injuries have been on the verge of preventing them from reaching the highest in their sport.
Hard and long rehabilitation periods for Carolina Marín to finish 2020 at the top of the world ranking again and aspire to gold in Tokyo and to the fourth world in Huelva. And also so that Rafa Nadal has achieved what nobody has won 13 times Roland Garros, one of the 20 Grand Slam that he adds in his career, only equaled by Federer.
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