Cristina Guntin, the only rugby coach in the Division of Honor: “Eibar always had faith in me”

Cristina Guntin landing in Eibar was not a mere posturing. “The decision had nothing to do with whether I was a woman or not,” explains club president Iñaki Arrizabalaga. The first thing that convinced him to make the decision to sign her was to see first-hand his “passion” for rugby and his “involvement” in improving everything related to the sporting aspect of the club. “She looks like she’s a fighter,” she is quick to say. Arrizabalaga does not regret her decision at all. On the contrary, he is full of praise for a “super valid woman who has our full support” and who is capable of leading a group of players who make an “impressive” sacrifice to combine their daily life with other tasks outside of the four weekly training sessions for the first team.

In his letter of introduction it appears that Cristina Guntin is a 43-year-old Galician and that Gastón Ibarburu is a 44-year-old Uruguayan who is united by his passion for rugby. The thing about being technicians of the Eibar in the feminine and masculine categories, respectively, they take it to a thousand wonders. The fact of knowing everything that the world of professional rugby means facilitates their respective tasks, including those that affect family reconciliation. No one who has been the mother or father of a large family is aware that with her biological son and two other foster kids who live with them, you have to strike a balance to care for everyone. Especially on weekends when there is a game.

Eighth of nine siblings

The Galician is the eighth of nine siblings. During her adolescence she hardly practiced any sport until her second year of Biology she discovered rugby. “I started a bit to get in shape and seeing that the group was very good and that I was very comfortable, I decided to continue”, spits. Despite her dyslexia, “which makes me make mistakes many times when I speak quickly and mix up numbers”, she obtained degrees in Biology and Social Education. So she gives the impression of being a woman who does not shrink at the first change in the face of adversity.

She is, without a doubt, one of those determined women. She did not even hesitate for a moment to pack her bags and leave her family comfort when her partner was offered a professional contract outside of Vigo. And that I had a job as a biologist in a botanical garden. During their stay in Gernika, where her partner played for the local club, everything changed for her professionally. “I couldn’t find a job either as an environmental biologist or as an educator, but when they asked me to train in the lower categories of Mungia and Kakarraldo, I accepted it instantly”.

From Gernika they went to live in Hendaye for a year. She managed to play in the ranks of ASB Bayonne and he, in Saint Jean de Luz Olympique. After a year, his rugby adventure continued in other places such as Scotland, where she had his biological son, Montevideo or Madrid. Both were good sportsmen. In fact, they got to play with their respective national teams. Ibarburu, even, can show his chest having faced the Springboks in 2005.

The return to the Basque Country

Suddenly, one fine day, Eibar Rugby Taldea came across their lives thanks to Peio Urkidi, a former coach of the Basque club who recommended them. The couple had always liked the idea of ​​returning to Basque Country and to raise their children there, so they didn’t give it much thought when the opportunity arose. “They called us, we explained our project to them and we all evaluated our ability to help such a modest club grow, and we immediately agreed”.

That talk was eight years ago. Since then, the women from Eibar have not stopped generating good news for Basque rugby, despite the fact that the first year was “very complex”. The men’s team was in División de Honor B “with many problems” and the girls were in the Basque League “where sometimes we lost 100-0”. In the second year they began to obtain some victories and in the third year they managed to ascend to Division of Honor B. They were only there for two seasons, because once the pandemic was over, they were promoted to the highest category. “A humble club like Eibar has always had a lot of faith in me. If this success had been achieved by another team from Madrid or Barcelona, ​​it would surely have had a much greater impact. But we get everything based on work, ”he says proudly.

This season they have even managed to contest the playoffs for the title, though they lost in the semifinal against the Sevillanas of Corteva Cocos Rugby. Looking back, Cristina Guntin remembers how her dyslexia, which made her look like a bad student, helped her learn to find other study formulas and correct her mistakes. If her problems with her language hadn’t been an obstacle to carrying out two careers, she was not going to be an obstacle to obtaining her official title of N3 trainer either. “I like to learn and understand everything”, she emphasizes. When it came to reconciling, she had it relatively easy with her partner, although whenever she has been able, she has taken her children by bus when traveling because the team expedition is only made up of women.

unpleasant anecdote

Of course, her status as a coach gave her some curious anecdotes, not to use another qualifier. on a certain occasion they stopped the physio, the trainer and herself at the entrance of a field for going with small children. After the corresponding explanations, the person who was blocking their way finally gave his arm to twist. Actually, she did it halfway, because she authorized their access to the facilities “without the children.” Fortunately, the thing was redirected without anyone raising their voices “and now, since they already know us, they don’t tell us anything, but you can’t even imagine the surprised face they put on at first,” he recalls with a certain resignation. That temperance is also shown on the field with the referees. “I am very respectful of them and I try to make my players respectful too,” she adds.

Cristina Guntin believes that the presence of women in everything that surrounds rugby “is becoming more and more normalized”. For her, for example, It was “a hoot” that his party of play offs for the title against the sevillanas was refereed by a girl. To reach that normalization there is still a long way to go because still in Spain some women have not just seen it. “The same does not happen in other countries like New Zealand and, in fact, when a player has come here, they don’t show any surprise.” The next step could be to coach a senior men’s team. At the moment, she has already done it with the sub 18s and on more than one occasion she has given her partner a hand.

Fraguas, physical trainer

Who leads the physical preparation of Eibar is Raquel Fraguas from Zaragoza, a former Spanish hundred-meter hurdles champion who, curiously, saw her Olympic dream come true with rugby and not with athletics. She had it made to go to Athens. A trip over a fence during practice shattered her knee. “I broke the cruciate, the meniscus, the neck of the femur and I was stopped for a year and a half”, remember. Bad luck caught up with her. “The fence pried her leg off, and I almost passed out from the pain.” Years later she met her current partner, Bernardo Domingo, who at that time was the physical trainer for the Spanish men’s and women’s national team of seven. He asked her for help because his work was piling up and, from there, they continue together. Despite the collaboration that his partner gave him, Domingo was not great with both teams, so he asked him to take charge of the girls. In this way both got their respective passports to be present at the Olympic Games from Rio de Janeiro.

Fraguas arrived in Guipúzcoa a year ago at the hands of Cristina Guntin, whom she knew from her stay in Madrid. His reunion was as a result of witnessing an Eibar semifinal against Majadahonda. After the match, Fraguas offered to help the team of her friend, whom she had liked “a lot”. The coach wanted to sign her on the spot, a decision that for various reasons was postponed for a year. She now lives in the coastal town of Deba and daily she travels to Eibar where she is the physical trainer for boys and girls in all categories of the club.

A “privileged”

Her activity makes her consider herself “privileged”, because she earns a living in a sport where professionalism is scarce. Few women can live from an activity like rugby. If, in addition to his daily chores, he takes time to attend to his five-year-old son James, the pieces of the puzzle to talk about quality of life fit perfectly. “Maybe in spain There are only three or four who dedicate themselves to this professionally”, reflect. Behind her are her years in Madrid, where she was forced to reconcile her work as a physical trainer, personal monitor or assistant to the Spanish Rugby Federation (FER) for very little money.

Little by little the professional activity to which Fraguas is dedicated has changed. Remember that he “not long ago”, in the series of World Series there were hardly any women in the technical staff. “Only boys appeared except in a selection where there was a physio”, he laments. Something similar happened to her, but for financial reasons. “The logical thing is that in my time with the national team the expedition included the players, the coach, the physio and the manager, so I limited myself to putting their homework in writing.”

Fraguas does not believe that there is machismo in rugby. “Yes, I would tell you that I have encountered more obstacles for being a mother than for being a woman”, it states. She does not forget the day that a year ago she went to the facilities of a Madrid club. The man who was at the reception tried to block his way because he was going to a girls’ locker room with his four-year-old son. “There are many children abandoned by the world,” the man managed to say to justify his incomprehensible decision. “Of course, in the end I entered with my son,” he blurts out.

Other of the anecdotes of his work is how he deals with it depending on whether they are girls or boys. “With them it is easier to train and with them to work”. It has its explanation. “When you ask a boy to run a hundred meters, they do it at the top and if you ask a girl, they usually ask you why,” she clarifies. When it comes to working, she confesses that with them it is “more difficult”. On the other hand, when she is with a trainer like Cristina “there is greater complicity because with her look I already know what she is going to tell me.”