BarcelonaAt the age of 39, Ander Mirambell has put an end to his career as a driver skeleton. The Catalan athlete thus ends a journey that began in 2005 and has led him to participate in four Olympic events: Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014, Pyeongchang 2018 and Beijing 2022. In addition, he has participated in 11 world championships, he has added two titles of the Copa America and the championship of Spain of the discipline, tournament that he himself helped to create, since when he began to practice skeleton he was the first to do so in the state. In Spain, in fact, there are no clues skeletona sport where you need an ice circuit of considerable size to go down with a sled that can go more than 120 km per hour.
Now Mirambell’s new professional challenge will be to direct the Belgian driver Kim Meylemans, one of the protagonists of the international circuit, and to accompany the future talents of theskeleton in Spain as sports director of the Spanish Ice Sports Federation. He announced this at an event in Barcelona surrounded by his people.
As a child, Ander Mirambell wanted to be a footballer. In fact, he entered the grassroots football of the club he carries in his heart, Espanyol. Then came athletics, but in 2005 he decided to try theskeleton. “I met a person who was engaged in bobsled and I wanted to try it. I made arrangements to do so, but once I arrived at the Catalan Winter Sports Federation they could only give me a cross-country ski suit. Do bobsled here it was impossible: too expensive and unstructured. I got my license and invested all the money I had to buy a car and be able to compete for a season and a half in the ‘skeleton“I told ARA Mirambell a few months ago.” Seven days later I had an accident, I broke my ring finger and had to have emergency surgery. When my mother arrived, she said, “Let’s go home, you’ve done enough.” But the organizers stopped the awards ceremony and told me that since I loved this sport so much, they would like me to be there to get on the podium someday. And the idea came to me, “he said.
To be an Olympian, Mirambell has done it in all its colors. He has gambled the few dollars he had in his pocket at a Las Vegas casino to try to pay for good accommodation near Colorado, has slept in icy parking lots, and asked for a thousand favors, like when at the 2020 America’s Cup. he was prevented from being assisted by the Chinese national team coach, the British Mark Woodi. In fact, when he decided to make the leap and try it in this sport that he hardly knew, the Spanish Ice Sports Federation did not even exist, so he started going to Switzerland and Austria to practice it. he had to sleep where he could. More than once he slept in the car, below zero, going cold. In the first race where he competed, he had made the shoes himself using tools for grating cheese that looked, in a way, similar to the soles of professional shoes.
“I feel this moment is not a farewell, but an opportunity to thank everyone for their efforts to achieve these results. I feel like the runner crossing the finish line and hugging the family waiting for him. I would have loved to say goodbye to the World Cup in Saint-Moritz, my favorite circuit, but my personal future and that of theskeleton in Spain they ask me to put the sleigh aside, ”he said at the farewell ceremony.
