“Without motivation, it’s hard for me to continue.” After thinking about it for months, Lorena Uslé (Solares, Cantabria, 1994) has decided to leave behind her great passion in life, badminton. The fine rope she was walking on, that of amateurism in the sports elite, was broken by not seeing any option to fight to be in the Paris Games. Witness and protagonist of the awakening of her sport in Oviedo, Uslé hangs up his shoes after winning two leagues with the Oviedo Badminton Club (CBO) and four Spanish championships in mixed doubles and after having participated in multiple international competitions. She graduated in Physiotherapy, the time has come to focus on her professional career.
Far behind is the summer of 2010, when he came to Asturias to stay. “Oviedo had already contacted me in 2008, but my father didn’t see fit for me to come so soon. I was only 14 years old and I’m the youngest (laughs). When I finished ESO we took the step,” recalls Lorena, who was fulfilling an illusion : “When I was in Solares I saw Oviedo as a big team, they went with the same kit and they were a group; I traveled alone, at most with a partner”.
Lorena Uslé and the CBO grew up together. The Technification Center began to flourish, talents began to reach the first team and Oviedo began to be a candidate for everything in national competitions. An Iberdrola Cup and the first league arrived, a pleasant surprise for a very young team. “We had an average of 20 years, almost all of us lived in the residence and we were a pineapple; in fact, we are still in contact. It was incredible,” says the Cantabrian athlete. Lorena’s evolution and her good rapport with Alberto Zapico in the mixed doubles did not go unnoticed by the technicians of the Spanish federation. For a long time they were the number one couple in the Spanish ranking, winning four national titles.
Once settled in the elite, however, the attrition began. He complains that the federation does not have a development program for the mixed doubles modality, but above all that the financial support he finds barely covers the efforts of being at the top, with long trips and frequent stays abroad. The pandemic only exacerbated the precariousness when normalcy returned. Uslé analyzes that “We have never considered going to the CAR, I am not on a scholarship, time goes by and we see that the support for specific objectives was not going to arrive. Zapico and I had the illusion of going to the Games, it is the great competition that we lack. It was very difficult, but we saw that there was no option to try, and that demotivates”.
With the Physiotherapy degree completed two years ago and taking her first professional steps, first at the Barreto clinic and now at the HUCA, the idea of retiring began to haunt Lorena Uslé’s head with increasing force. “It was the whiting that bit its tail: I have to work to pay for the competition, and if I compete I don’t do courses or masters or anything because they are on the weekend… and also in private centers there is no high-level athlete status level, with which it is difficult to reconcile”.
Lorena has it assimilated. She is still processing Alberto Zapico, a mixed doubles partner of eight years and a partner in personal life. “The truth is that he still doesn’t know what to do, whether to look for another mixed doubles partner, play the singles or do only men’s doubles. He is passionate about badminton, he never disconnects, and he loves teaching children. He will continue”, predicts Lorena .
Gone are many memories, but none like the last championship in Spain. “We had almost not coincided in training, and all the matches were three sets, we had a very bad time and we had everything against us. They wanted to retire us, but we won it,” recalls Uslé with a smile, before sending a message to the CBO, with whom he won a second league in 2020: “I thank him for the opportunity. He has grown a lot, he covers all ages, he has achieved titles, but he cannot settle, he has to go for more.”
