Joaquín Carmona, the athletic sage who sleeps on the street

This Tuesday, Joaquín Carmona (46) has left the Madrid park where he has slept for twelve years, has installed himself in a nearby pension, has turned on the computer he carries on his back and cares for him with care and has become mute.

In a day, he had gained fifteen thousand followers and Twitter.

“And without tweeting,” he says.

And those who follow him, those who follow him, we rubbed our eyes. Joaquín Carmona,
@ jokin4318 on Twitter
, is an encyclopedia of athletics. The wisest among those who follow this sport. The referent.

And also, a mystery.

A mystery that has gone on for many years, running from mouth to ear without anyone knowing anything:

–Do you know who Joaquín Carmona is? –The athletics people have always wondered, fascinated by the contributions of that impeccable tweeter, infallible statesman, discreet companion, someone who tweets data in an aseptic way, without commenting, without polemicizing.

Figures only.

“No idea,” they all replied.

And so we lived.

An athlete broke a record. Or pick up a title. Or a failure. Or it was her birthday. Or passed away. And immediately the tweet from @ jokin4318 jumped.

A perfect tweet.

A tweet that went to mass.

(…)

Three months ago the pandemic came and Joaquín Carmona disappeared from the networks. Neither a tweet nor a data came out of his profile. There was silence.

And after the silence, suspicions.

The mistery

For years, athletics did not know who he was @ jokin4318, perfect tweeter: he has been on the street for twelve years

–There is no news from @ jokin4318. Does anyone know something? –Began to comment on the networks.

No one.

There were those who feared the worst.

Maybe the coronavirus …

Alfredo Varona went to look for the light. He is a magnificent chronicler of athletics in The Runner’s Bag (LBDC). Alfredo Varona launched Chinese in the networks and found the answer in Turin. A man from Madrid who now lived in Italy sent him a private message:

–I know who @ jokin4318 is.

-And good? Varona asked her.

–A while ago, I met him in a library in the Arganzuela neighborhood. By the way: ‘If you see him, tell him to stop sleeping on the street …’.

¿…?

The search

Alfredo Varona, chronicler of ‘La Bolsa Del Corredor’, located Carmona in a park in Madrid: the genius slept in the open

“That student told me that,” Alfredo Varona tells me. And I, who thought that Joaquín Carmona would be a university professor, or a researcher, went to the park to look for him. And I arrived at the place with a friend and there was Joaquín Carmona, with the ribbon in his hair, with his unmistakable appearance. And yes, the athletics encyclopedia slept in the open.

This is followed by a talk between the two, an effort to reconfigure Joaquín Carmona, who says no, he does not want to know anything about the world.

–That I have a lot to lose.

All of these men talk and go to a nearby Burger King. And Joaquín Carmona asks for a vegetarian burger because he doesn’t eat meat.

And finally he lets go and accepts it.

“I’m going to let you help me,” he says to Alfredo Varona.

The first thing the journalist does is publish the story of the wise man who sleeps on the street. And later, monta un crowdfunding and raises thousands of euros (At noon on Tuesday it exceeded 5,000; at this point, there are already three different initiatives in motion). And so, Joaquín Carmona can finally pay a room in a pension.

It is indoors

And from there, kindly on the phone, he attends us:

–I’ve been without a call for ten years. And now, suddenly, thousands of loving messages come to me. But I have come to the pension because someone, anonymously, has given me the money. And because this morning, in the park, there were too many televisions. And I hadn’t cleaned up. And he was overwhelmed – he tells me.

I wanted to be an athlete but it didn’t fit: I had to pay 60 pesetas to enter the tracks; and I didn’t have them ”

Joaquín Carmona
Athletics Sage

–And what are you going to do now?

–I’ll turn on the computer. I’ll see if it works. I turned it off three months ago when the library closed and I couldn’t connect. And I will continue to promote athletics. It has little presence. Before it was more on television.

–And where does passion come from?

–I come from a broken family. My father was an alcoholic. He was not one of those who took you to school by car. I discovered Jarmila Kratochvilova at the 1983 World Cups, on television. I wanted to be an athlete but I did not fit into the group of my town or Bilbao, 13 kilometers away. He had to pay 60 pesetas (0.5 euros) to enter the slopes. I didn’t have them. I had little fortune in life, professionally and emotionally. And now I’m on the street. I guess this has all happened because I have never complained. I neither think nor ask for anything. I get it, but I think the world shouldn’t be like this.

I have spent years going to libraries; there is always some story to tell ”

Joaquín Carmona
Athletics Sage

–But what has led you to this situation?

–I studied up to 3º of BUP. During the EGB I was an outstanding student. I was good with the numbers, hence my tweets are statistical. But I have no university training.

-Why?

–No one was going to pay me for college and there was no point in trying. When I was a kid, a neighbor told my teacher about my situation. Montse spoke to the neighbor and told her that I could go live with the teacher and her son. I never intended to move in with them and I guess I was wrong. I would have had more access to things. My life would have been different.

-And so…

–There was no work in town (Zamudio) and I went to Madrid. He was carrying a suitcase with money. Money was not enough for everything. I started sleeping at the station and then I went to a more central room in Atocha. I had ten little jobs. In one of them they offered me an advertising dealer contract. He kept payrolls, he did things. The company went bankrupt and I set up an ice cream kiosk.

-AND…?

–The kiosk was near the Santiago Bernabeu. He worked a lot. But it was next to a church and the city council closed it to me with bad arts. And there I sank.

–And here it is…

–A lot of things came together. The kiosk, problems in my apartment, emotional problems … I did not remake myself and this is my life.

-It seems like a lie. Her tweets are of infinite knowledge.

I have spent years going to libraries. She also entered La Casa Encendida. I read, I scratch stories, I like to help. There is always something to tell. When I talk to social educators, they all tell me that I have a level of researcher. Let’s see what comes out of all this. I know that now they are trying to help me, that someone is considering the possibility of offering me something related to athletics. I must have a head to manage this boom.