“He had that way of living life that did not agree with doing only one thing, with wanting only one thing, with experiencing only one thing,” Bebi Fernández wrote in love and loathing. A few words that fit with the behavior of Miriam Blasco. She never pigeonholed in judo. He set goals that forced him out of his comfort zone.
Motivation is the driving force for Miriam Blasco to make decisions. In Barcelona she became the first Spanish woman to win a gold medal at an Olympic Games. But his road to that milestone was not easy. He faced this important chapter of his life a few weeks after his trainer, Sergio Cardell, died in a motorcycle accident. He was the one who had convinced her to be champion. For her, victory was not an option, but an obligation that she had imposed on herself. In her head it was only worth winning and dedicating the medal to her. And that triumph marked her present and future.
Two years after that triumph, and after being the third best in Europe in the two consecutive championships, she retired. Her motivation was not enough to fight again to be the best in the world. After four years preparing for the Olympics and achieving the goal, a new goal could not generate the same adrenaline. The same thing happened to her as a coach a few years later. She left when she got her judoka They were Olympic medalists.
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Despite a successful career in the world of judo, he started in this discipline by chance, or by parental decision. In a house where eight brothers lived, his father – a physical education teacher – signed them up two by two for each sport. She had to be judoka. At the end of his sports career, again chance led her to become a politician, something that had never been in his plans. At a meal where the Olympic athletes met with José María Aznar, she almost inadvertently proposed that she be a senator. But that initial proposal settled. And the four years that she had accepted ended up being 16. Sport in Spain still had-and still has-many open gaps.
30 years after his first and only gold, life brings her back to her beginnings. She is a judo teacher at her own academy and collaborates with the Acomar association to help homeless people. And, although she voted against homosexual marriage when she was a PP deputy, her life surprised her. She faces this stage of her life – for four years – with her partner Nicole Kim Fairbrother, the woman against whom she competed in the judo final of the 92 Olympics.
