Miguel Delibes titled his first novel ‘The shadow of the cypress is elongated’. In Spain, the shadow cast by Carolina Marín, triple world champion, is so long that it does not let other players like Clara Azurmendi see. A young woman from San Sebastian who he moved to Madrid at the age of 14 to focus solely on the sport of driving. With 23 completed last May, Clara will experience the Olympic Games.
Every story has its beginning. “I play badminton for him”, Clara says. It refers to José Domingo ‘Txomin’ Madinabeitia. Died in 2016, the Marianist was one of the referents (if not the most) of this sport in Guipúzcoa. And specifically, at Summa-Aldapeta, the school where the player studied. He was the one who always trusted our representative in Tokyo (Pablo Abián will be the male). He sensed that he would go far, very far. I only asked him not to stop smiling and enjoying.
After Carolina Marín’s serious injury, Spain could have been left without a presence in women’s badminton. However, Txomin’s disciple was ranked 41st in the world rankings. And due to the rest of the casualties, the position of Spain bears his name. “I knew he was going to qualify from June 5 or 10,” says Arturo Ruiz, his coach and current technical director of the Spanish Badminton Federation.. Something that the protagonist also knew, but “the list was missing”. He received the news in his hometown, with his relatives and with “the butterflies in his stomach and the tingling” typical of such a moment.
In his personal announcement on social networks, he remembered, among others, Carolina Marín with the following words: “You have been, are and will always be a reference”. The woman from Gipuzkoa is not only lucky enough to share training sessions at the High Performance Center with the current Olympic champion, but she also has the privilege of being able to feel like a friend of the woman from Huelva. But both are clear that inside the pavilion they are “companions but rivals”. Marín is for Azurmendi an example in everything. He considers her a “megacrack”, the strongest player mentally on the circuit. “If I want to reach his height I have to try harder,” he admits.
Share with your friend and rival the same goal for your first Games: “She was going like me in London now. She was going to enjoy“. Carolina fell in the group stage. Today the medalist in Rio 2016 is sure to want her friend to surpass her mark in her Olympic debut. And I’m sure Txomin, from wherever she is, will have a smile on her face when she sees her fulfill her dream.
