Three guys with bows and arrows. That sounded more like an old tale from mythology or any of the few heroes attached to that contraption. “The archery? People in Spain didn’t even know what sport was, they related it to Robin Hood, the movies…”, he explains. Juan Carlos Holgado (Cáceres, 04-16-1968), member of the trident with Antonio Vazquez (Aller, Asturias, 01-26-1961) and Alfonso Menendez (05-31-1966), never before present on the podium of any major competition. Before launching, they nailed the worst of the god’s arrows Cupidthat of indifference.
“The following day’s medal options appeared in the newspapers. I got to archery in one of them and it said: “none”. Demolition Man!” recalls Holgado. But they went to launch the other one of the arrows that Cupid carried, the golden one, the one of love to make everyone fall in love. With that gold in the final against Finland on August 4, 1992, they climbed Hebron Valley to Olympus, where he had already risen Antonio Rebollo as a Spanish goalkeeper par excellence.
The three Spanish goalkeepers with their coach, the Ukrainian Victor Sydoruk
The last crush, that of Antonio Vázquez, a cold blood more than a sensitive to haste: an arrow, one second to throw, impact to yellow and 9 victorious points for the final score of 238 to 236. “Nerves? I didn’t look at the clock or the scoreboard, I was simply paying attention to what I had to be doing, people were screaming but I didn’t hear anything, I had done very important sophrological work with Mariano Espinosa Explain. “What happened with Rebollo at the inauguration was really difficult, he shot an arrow with fire. If he had fallen before reaching the cauldron with all the people there…I would have messed it up!” assures the Asturian. “In January, the sponsor withdrew its sponsorship due to lack of results. They missed it”, adds Vázquez with a mischievous smile.
“Yes, no one counted on us. Our only goal was to get through the first round against Denmark, but we were there. I think after that first round we free ourselves because by being among the first eight we had already secured the scholarship for the following year and that was one of the keys. Also, that we knew how to play with the wind”, he points out. Alfonso Menendez, currently manager of the Santa Olaya Swimming Club in Gijón. And, among so many crushes, people became infatuated with that trio for whose end they had cut the news. So much sudden love that Antonio, ideal celebrity ‘look’ with his abundant and revolutionized afro hairhe got scared.
“We became famous all of a sudden, my hair is afro and I decided to cut it to go unnoticed”
“I was very reserved and I felt overwhelmed, we had gone from being anonymous to having a fame of soccer players. When I arrived in my town in Asturias, it took me almost an hour to walk the 200 meters between my house and the hairdresser because people entertained me. When I finally got to the salon, I told the barber to remove all that hair, I wanted to go unnoticed. He hesitated, but in the end he did it. Upon leaving, It only took me a minute to get back home the same way!” explains Antonio Vázquez, now coach in the Catalan Archery Federation and monitor of the Olesa de Montserrat club.
That divine history had much of the superhuman, arising from a total of 250,000 arrows launched in two years at a rate of 600 or 700 a day under the crudeness and harshness of the uncompromising Soviet method of the Ukrainian Victor Sydoruk, a coach in his fifties back from everything, a former colonel in the USSR Army, and archery world champion in 1968 after leaving Greco-Roman wrestling due to a knee injury. Devoted also to the theories of Charles Darwin.
Holgado and Vázquez, in a training session before the competition
“The three of us who stayed to go to the Games was because pure natural selection, because we were the only ones who didn’t get injured, those training sessions were very hard, there were days when we did three sessions, with a third night after dinner. I think there was a day slammed 16 home because he said they were worthless,” explains Vázquez. A frequent curmudgeon, Sydoruk had no qualms about expressing her anger when she felt it, as an anecdote by Holgado illustrates.
“I wanted to go to a regional championship in Madrid and Victor wouldn’t let me, but I went. When finished, he took me by the chest and we almost came to blows. The next day he gave me double training for being disobedient and for a while we had a kind of ‘cold war’, with me he was harder in dealings. It was difficult for him to get used to our culture, he did not understand that he could not use a facility at such a time because it was busy and, such was his obsession that, upon arriving in Spain, one day he kicked a stone in rage for this reason, broke his toe and he was in plaster for a month. But that discipline is what made us win, in the first months there were moments of tension with him and also between the three of us because of the exhaustion that being away from the family and our different characters entailed, but we got over it”, says Holgado, today sports director of the International University Sports Federation.
“I am especially excited now to talk about Victor Sydoruk. He is experiencing a difficult situation with the Ukraine”
“Another good anecdote happened in the pool. Swimming was part of our physical preparation but Antonio didn’t know how to swim. He told Victor and he said: “Come, I’ll teach you.” Do you know what he did? He threw him into the water! Alfonso and I went quickly to teach him. Sydoruk’s method was survival,” explains Holgado, the son of Spaniards born in Germany but transferred at the age of 9 to Caceres.
But, above all, the feeling towards Sydoruk has always been one of gratitude, and, especially today, no harshness, but only tenderness towards him. “He was a spare and dry man but we fit in with him. I am very excited to remember the medal right now because Victor is Ukrainian and we know the situation that is happeningbut luckily it’s ok. My relationship with him is very close, he was at my wedding”, highlights, with a broken voice, Alfonso Menéndez, about Sydoruk, today president of the Ukrainian Archery Federation to his 84 years old. “He has an admirable energy”, highlights Holgado.
Alfonso Menéndez, in a current photo with the gold of Barcelona, the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit and the Olympic Order
Buried Denmark in the first round and therefore fulfilled the file, the favorite for gold was waiting licking his lips Unified Team, name under which Russia and the rest of the USSR countries competed, except for the Baltics after the disintegration of the Soviet empire. Perhaps, although the die had already been cast with the abundant work accumulated, they heard Holgado, Vázquez and Menéndez whisper in their minds the patriotic outburst the Sydoruk.
“He already told us the first year: “With the Russians you cannot lose. If not, punishment sessions”. It was a personal matter for him, we could lose against any team except Russia. In Barcelona he didn’t say anything to us, but he was very happy”, explains Juan Carlos with a laugh. In the semifinals the Spanish trident fired United Kingdom and, in the final, to Finland, where, according to Menéndez, “we knew how to play with the wind”.
“We didn’t use condoms like the rest of the athletes in the village, Victor had us under control!”
“Our medal is explained by many things, the scores we did were no surprise, it was what we scored in training. I think our main strength was that, as we had three very different characters, we complemented each other, the virtue of one compensated for the defect of another. I was more extroverted, Antonio introverted and Alfonso, somewhere in between. Besides, competing while one threw, the other looked at the score and the other assessed the wind, that was innovative. There was no team that could adapt to all circumstances like us”, highlights Holgado.
Juan Carlos Holgado, in a recent photo with the gold
And Vázquez, Menéndez and Holgado took that gold molded between strenuous training, convergence of different characters, concentration… and abstinence. “We sleep in the olympic village, but we only ate, trained and slept in Barcelona. We don’t live the atmosphere of the villa, Victor had us very controlled, he said that the villa was to sleep and that’s it. There is a statistic that says that on the fifth or sixth day of the Games some 10 condoms per athlete. There would be someone who would use 20 because we didn’t see anything!” exclaims Juan Carlos Holgado between laughter.
Although they did not see AphroditeThey shot Cupid’s golden arrow of love. “In Spain, people realized that archery was a sport and that it had Olympic medalists on top of it,” concludes Holgado, one of the three unforeseen heroes of the Spanish archery team, the most beautiful coincidence of Barcelona ’92.
Good time for archery
“With people like Miguel Alvariño, if we are close to another Olympic medal, it is now”
The Spanish archery team in Barcelona ’92 just remained an isolated thing that had no continuity over time. Behind them, who were unable to return to the podium of a major competition, partly due to cutbacks in the ADO Plan, there were hardly any more joys. That of those Games remains as the only Olympic medal of Spain in this sport and the silver in the World Cup of Victoria (Canada) of 1997 of Jose Ignacio Catalan, Juan B. Sancho and Antonio Cerra it remains the only metal in a World Championship.
However, today stands out, above all, the figure of the Galician Miguel Alvariño, who in June became the European champion in recurve archery and climbed to number 1 in the world ranking. In the same competition, DanielCastro, also, Galician was fourth. Spain also took the silver for teams with Alvariño, Castro and the man from Burgos Paul AchaAlvariño’s predecessor in the individual event when he won the continental title in 2021. The successes have been growing from below, and the Spanish delegation was brought four medals of the last Junior World Cup.
Elijah Cost he is working very well as national coach and making a name for himself, Miguel Alvariño has worked with him and in the last European Championship great results have been achieved. We have goalkeepers who can strike at any time, if we are close to another Olympic medal it is now”, highlights Anthony Vazquez, very involved in Spanish archery as coach of the Catalan Federation.
