Contact sports have two new benchmarks in Gran Canaria. Ariadne Medina, from the Gil Catarino Academy, already knows what it is to win a World Cup and a European junior jiu jitsu. For her part, Laura Volo, from the Akari-Las Nieves club, managed to end a 23-year drought by winning gold in an absolute Spanish Judo Championship. But they both want more. Youth and desire are not lacking.
Gran Canaria continues to forge great sporting talents. Young people who have been stomping from the grassroots categories. An example, the successes of martial arts, modalities that promise to continue giving great joy in the coming years. Ariadne Medina and Laura Volo are two examples of this; They have become the princesses of the tatami in their own right in the disciplines of Brazilian jiu jitsu and judo, respectively.
The story of the very young Ariadne Medina, belonging to the Gil Catarino Academy, It’s like a Hollywood movie. At the age of 14, she received an invitation from the prestigious Atrixion Academy in Dubai to travel to the Middle East and there prepare for the Junior World Cup, which was held in November in Abu Dhabi. The result could not be better; The athlete from Gran Canaria managed to win the World Cup gold (-48 kilos). But the thing does not end there, two weeks later she repeated with a first place in the European Championship, in Ireland (-52 kilos).
“In Dubai I competed every day with athletes of my level and that made me improve,” says Ariadne Medina
“It was a hard experience, because I had to be separated from my family for a long time, in addition to having to speak another language, adapt to another culture and make new friends,” says the two-time champion, grateful for the treatment received since her arrival in Dubai. and for having had the opportunity to “fulfill my dream”.
At Atrixion Academy, he spent “all day training.” “We had to prepare our food, do the shopping and also attend our classes at school online,” he says. “What surprised me during my stay in Dubai is that we were all high-level athletes and that was noticeable when training, because I could compete with athletes of my level,” admits the young islander.
The key to being crowned champion in the World Cup and the European Championships lay, according to the athlete herself, in her ability to “control my nerves.” “The World Cup was more difficult, because I had to face more struggles than in the European one,” she admits. On her roadmap she awaits the Spanish Championship, the AJP Tour Gran Canaria and the World Open in Los Angeles, in addition to returning to Dubai.
23 years of waiting
For his part, for Laura Volo, at first, judo “was almost an obligation imposed by my parents when I was three years old, but over the years they gave me the option to choose, and I decided to stay ».
The decision of the young woman from Gran Canaria has been rewarded 16 years later. She picked up the baton left 23 years ago by a reference like Aythami Ruano. Until now, he was the last Gran Canaria to win an absolute national judo title –in 1998 and 1999–. Despite being still a junior, Laura managed to emulate him thanks to her hard work and the advice of her coach at the Akari-Las Nieves club, Jorge Hernández.
“When I picked up the gold, I felt in my coach’s eyes that we had achieved it,” says Laura Volo
«It is an honor to be able to represent the Canary Islands in a Spanish Championship. I was very excited, I looked at my coach and I felt that look that told me that we had done it, and it was something very satisfying », he recalls. “Behind that gold there is a lot of sacrifice, discipline, hours of training, many falls and you have to know how to get up to get there,” he adds.
Among the next objectives of the young judoka, within the junior category, is her participation in the four events of the European Cups, “in which I will try to reach the highest possible score.” “I also have in mind to participate in the Spanish Under 23 Championship and continue competing in the senior category.” Although those in Paris are a utopia, “the Olympic dream is always there,” she admits.
The Akari-Las Nieves factory bears fruit
Akari-Las Nieves started its activity 20 years ago, the last 12 as an official club. For Jorge Hernández, his alma mater, the goal is “to start from the base, and progress with the students in their evolutionary process until they reach the elite.” In the Nuestra Señora de Las Nieves educational center, in Marzagán, the training of high-level athletes is centralized, “about 60”, although the entity has about “450 distributed in our different training centers,” says Hernández. “We have a solid group, in which both the male and female genders are almost on par.” “That is something that is reflected in the club, where you can breathe a healthy atmosphere and in which we always try to instill a team feeling, even if it is an individual sport,” says the teacher. “It had been 23 years since a Canary Islander had won a Spanish Championship in the absolute category and now an athlete who trains has achieved it, which is an added value,” he says proudly, while stating that for him “judo is a style of life”. | YEAH
