He is only 20 years old, he has just reached the absolute category of judo but the arrival of Ariane Toro Soler Relevo glimpses a different athlete, one who gives off the aroma of a champion and who ends up giving joy. There is no trace of the timidity of someone who appears in the elite, a few months before the celebration of nothing more and nothing less than the Olympic Games, to kick down the door and present himself as one of the fashionable names in Spanish sport.
Break into world judo with a bronze in the prestigious Paris Grand Slam, the big event on the circuit, talks about your credentials. If you manage to repeat it just a few days later at the Baku meeting, getting in Olympic place position by ranking, it’s already a serious thing. But if in the third tournament of the year, You arrive in Tbilisi and you climb to the top of the podium, debuting your gold medal list among the best on the planet, you present yourself to the world as one of those star rivals, despite your youth.
Putting her two surnames when introducing Ariane is not a coincidence. Daughter of Yolanda Soler, bronze medalist at the Atlanta Games in 1996, and José Soler, Olympian in that same edition. Now, 28 years later, the heiress is seeking classification in the absence of the ranking’s closure.
Is there a first memory in judo or were you almost born on the tatami?
I have the memory of being very little on the tatami where I started, with my parents. I always say that I started crawling on the tatami. I don’t know, I would start when I was three or four years old and not so much doing judo, but rather playing and having fun on the tatami. My first memory of judo was a little later, when I was older and in my first competitions, and I remember enjoying it a lot.
It was an obligation to end up being a judoka…
My parents, who are now my coaches, signed me up for judo, but I have never had pressure to do judo. They signed me up because they were there, but from a very young age I fell in love with this sport.
Ariane Toro, the fashionable judoka. Do you realize what you are doing?
(Smiles) The previous year I had already won a Grand Slam, but it is true that I did not finish getting into the fight to win the medal. In Paris, which is one of the most prestigious competitions, I was obviously going to get a medal, but I knew it was a very difficult competition. I saw the list [de participantes] and he said: ‘My goodness, getting a medal from here is going to be very expensive.’ When I got into the semifinals, with the competition I was doing, she told me that I couldn’t leave without my medal. I lost the semi-finals and came out with everything in the bronze medal. I left very happy to win a medal, it was like now I’m here and that also meant that, then in Baku and now in Tbilisi, I had more security, more confidence and I was already more confident on the tatami. And well, I was able to get it too.
How did you do it? You broke down the door…
Yes, we had already trained with almost all the best in the world in my weight and I knew I had the level. For a couple of years, I felt very good with, even, Olympic champions, world medals… People who saw it told me that the medals were going to arrive, I thought so too, but until they arrive, you don’t know. you totally believe it. Later, everyone told me that once the first one arrives, the others go more smoothly. I am happy that it has not been a matter of just one day, that I have maintained the level and that I raise it more and more.
Even if it is a training session, does it show that you are there to look the best in the face?
It is very different from training to competing, but we do quite a few concentrations throughout the year with all the weight, well, all the people from abroad and when you measure yourself there and see that you can have the level, that you do very good fights of your own To you, you already believe that you can have that level. It is true that then competing is different and with the nerves, the pressure, that there they no longer give anything away, it is different, but well, in the end it is also… Competing with them, measuring myself, doing fights, I saw that I could get them ahead and Although at first I didn’t get them out, because I kept working and with confidence and in the end I got them out.
Any training that would change your chip to lose respect for the best?
I was with the Kosovar Distria Krasniqi, who is an Olympic champion [de -48kg] and wins everything, and training very, very well with her. We were there very much one on one, and she is the best. When she was leaving, I thought I could be there too.
You are one of the youngest in the fight for medals of your weight. Do your rivals tell you where you came from?
In Paris, after winning that medal, we were there to go out on the podium and the British Chelsie Gilles, with whom I had lost in the semifinals, asked me: is this your first medal? It was my first medal in Paris and my first Grand Slam medal. I had trained with her before and she already told me that she was very strong, that she was very young and that she already knew that I could give her a fight. Someone else training also told me that I was very tough and good, but they didn’t tell me, of course, we are rivals, nor did they tell me, I think you’re going to win. But hey, we already talked about that.
If they tell you this at the end of 2023, would you believe what was going to happen?
Not really. My mother had a similar situation on her day, in Barcelona ’92, and she told me: ‘Well, you never know.’ Yes, but I didn’t have any medals and now, suddenly, she was going to take everything? And she told me: Let’s get to it. And in the end she was right.
That your mother and coach has achieved it opens the way for you.
Well, both of them, my mother and my father always encourage me in everything. My father, above all, to fight, to work and, with that, we can surely achieve it. In my mother’s case, there was another girl in qualifying positions at her time, and she was the young woman that everyone said was doing very well, but she really wasn’t into the Games yet. And with six months to go, she also started to get several medals, managed to get on the European podium and was very close to the Games. So, that’s why she tells me that she went through that situation and that she never knew, that maybe I could do the same.
You can be a case like Adriana Cerezo in taekwondo. Three years ago, she arrived at the last minute, she entered the Pre-Olympic with a great streak of victories and… even the medal in Tokyo. You catch the crest of the wave and seem invincible. Do you have that feeling?
I think I’m not at my peak. When you start getting medals, everything goes a little more smoothly, and in addition, you also train with such a big goal, with more motivation and doing things better. We do trust the work we do and we are going to work to reach the Olympic Games in the best possible way. See you at the Games.
[En la situación actual, Ariane Toro es la mejor judoka española en el ranking olímpico de la categoría de -52 kilos, pero habrá que esperar hasta el cierre del plazo. En los criterios de la federación española, se daba preferencia para la única plaza por peso a la judoka mejor colocada en el ranking a 31 de diciembre de 2023 y, en ese momento, era Estrella López Sheriff. Ahora, tras las tres medallas, Toro está muy por delante en cuanto a puntos, pero si su rival española entrara aunque fuera en la última plaza de clasificadas por detrás de Toro, pondría en un brete a la RFEJyDA].
With you you can use the phrase that ‘all gamers smile the same’. As Adriana did when she left the Tokyo final, she can be seen smiling in the fights.
(Smiles) It makes me laugh because there is a coach, Daniel Pions, who was with me in Paris when I got the medal and tells me that I laugh in the fights. I’m like, “man, how am I supposed to laugh during combat?” And he tells me it’s true. That in the fight for bronze in Paris, when he was throwing my rival, he told me what a shame the camera didn’t capture me because he was laughing at me. In combat, other judokas like to warm up until the end and I like to come out a little “distracted” but focused on the combat. I am a person who has to be laughing… If you see me very serious, something is wrong. It must be because I like to laugh a lot.
Do you see yourself doing what Adriana did or what your mother did?
Yes of course. In the end, we train for it and you have to dream big. You work for it, and there are always four people on the podium, why shouldn’t it be me? It’s something very difficult, but let’s go for it.
That determination, confidence and little fear of an event like the Olympic Games amazes me. Where did you get that character from?
From my parents, totally. My father, today. He tells me that we should dream big, that we have the level to do big things and we are not yet at our peak. And my mother, the same. That phrase “there are four people on the podium and why shouldn’t I be one of them” has been something my mother has been saying to me for a long time. So, it comes to me a little bit of both parts.
And in the mix of the two, a star has been born.
I always say that my parents, the two of them together, are the perfect combination for me. My mother also has that point in her mind, that I work a lot with her, and some judo techniques that she teaches me, and my father is a very fighter and very tactical when it comes to doing judo. If I have a grip question, I see that there is a rival that makes me uncomfortable and I don’t know how to do it, my father helps me. My mother, who has been an Olympic bronze medalist, knows a lot about managing pressure, handling situations before competing and, obviously, she also knows a lot about judo and I learn a lot from her.
You were talking about how you haven’t reached the top. What’s left to get there?
A lot of work. I am very young and there is still a lot, a lot of work to do, and to train.
Is that limit enough for an Olympic medal?
(Smiles) Since I was very little, I dreamed of the Olympic medal. When you see her in your house, you think you can get it and there she was. Being a child she looked at her. But now, until it’s there, I see it far away because I almost can’t believe the situation I’m in. Because, as she told you, 7 months ago I couldn’t imagine this, I did dream and I dreamed big, but until you’re inside, you don’t believe it. I think that until I’m at the Olympic Games that day, I’m not going to believe it.
How do you imagine it?
It’s difficult because I don’t know the draw, but if I go the other way than the Japanese Uta Abe, I hope to do a final with her, who is the current Olympic champion. I like to visualize before fights how I can win, or how to throw them. With Abe, I envision a very, very, very tough fight until the Golden Score [puntuación de oro] and then throwing it away and celebrating with my parents, I give them a hug and we start crying.
2024-03-24 07:37:39
#judokas #podium #Paris #Relief
