Adrià initially did figure skating, but admits that “he wasn’t good at jumping”, so he thought about quitting. “My coach at the time told me why I wasn’t looking for a girl and skating in pairs, dancing. I told him I had no idea what that was. So he made me look for videos so you could see what At that moment, the only girl I liked who skated, and who was the best for me, was Sara Hurtado, so we suggested she try, “he recalls. In fact, it was necessary to convince the Spanish Ice Sports Federation to create this modality, which did not exist. “We had to convince the Federation to bet on dance and hire a coach,” recalls the Barcelona native. During the first years of the race, he had spent more than 1,000 euros to be able to have a dress elegant enough to go skating, as the clothing also adds up, in this modality. Everything, paid for out of pocket.
Adrià left for Madrid in 2009, where he lived with Hurtado’s parents for a while, mixing ice workouts with the gym and dance classes. The Federation, which was betting on them, hired British coach John Dull, with whom they made a leap in quality and became one of the top five junior pairs in Europe. But in 2011 Dull received a good offer in London and left. Both made the decision to follow him, but never adapted to the British capital. “We had to share the ice rinks with the general public, the ice did not meet the optimal conditions for training, the track was small …”, Hurtado recalled at an event he held in Las Rozas, where he resides. Disappointed, they returned to Madrid, where for a few months they decided what to do. Ambitious, they asked the Federation for help to move to Canada, where some coaches were willing to work with them in Montreal. In December 2011, they landed under the snow in Quebec. And Adrià continues to live there most of the year, training with Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon, Romain Haguenauer and Pascal Denis. “The coach and the training are covered by the Federation. And then with the scholarships we have we are giving families a break, which until recently we could not do,” admits Diaz, who has made a lot of financial efforts to be able to keep skating.
The Díaz-Hurtado couple were the first Spaniards to reach the Games in 2014 in Sochi, where they were thirteenth. But in 2015, after finishing fifth in the European Championship, they decided to separate the roads. That same year, the UK champion pair of Olivia Smart and Joseph Buckland also decided to separate. While in Madrid Sara Hurtado became the professional partner of Kirill Jalyavin, a Russian skater based in Spain, Adrià received Olivia’s Facebook message and they decided to stay to skate together. To see if there would be chemistry. “It was very easy. We were told we had a very similar basic technique, because she’s British and my first coach was British, so there were a lot of things that fit in from the start. And we were in the middle of the season. , so there was no hurry because we didn’t have to compete immediately. We had time to adapt to each other “, remembers Adrià.
But at the 2017 World Cup, Hurtado and Jalyavin were better, and qualified for the 2018 Olympics. The couple who had opened their doors together now competed separately to go to the Games. From teammates to rivals. That disappointment was the fuel that Diaz and Smart needed to prepare for the 2022 Games. “We’ve worked hard for these four years, both on and off the ice. as a team, as teammates who work together every day. Our coaches and our psychologist have helped us a lot here, and I think it’s one of our biggest achievements in this cycle: learning to enjoy every moment as a team. ” , explains Smart. “Because we have been two teams for so long and only one place for the Olympics, it is a healthy rivalry in which we have pushed each other to be better,” admits the Barcelona native. All in all, in 2021 they were the ones to keep the place for the Games, having surpassed Hurtado and Jalyavin. The icing on the cake after a great season in which they were fourth in the Europeans, one step away from the podium, in the best result ever achieved by a Spanish couple, as well as being state champions and winning a bronze medal at the Canadian Grand Prix . In addition, they have set a new Spanish record in three categories: rhythmic dance, free dance and the sum of the two competitions. They are in a sweet moment, just in an Olympic year.
Diaz and Smart bring a program to the Beijing Games to the beat of Proud Maryby Tina Turner, in the short program and soundtrack of the film The Fox’s mask in the long run. The debut will be on Saturday at 12 noon and the second staging, on Monday at 2.15 am. In the ice dance competition, the couple should almost always be in touch, dancing. Individual jumps such as figure skating are not allowed, because here the complicity between the skaters rules, while the judges score by mixing elements such as the exercises done, but also the harmony following the rhythm of the music and the clothes used. The couple’s challenge is to aspire to the Olympic diploma finishing in the top eight, aware that the medals are far behind. His presence in China, by the way, also means a return to a winter date for federated athletes at FC Barcelona. Interestingly, Olivia Smart admits that she has been to Barcelona just a couple of times, because they live in Canada. But the Barça club federated them a few years ago, giving some support. Until now, the only Barça Olympic ice skaters were Glòria Mas in 1980 in ice skating and Marta Andrade, in the same discipline, at the 1994 Lillehammer and Nagano 1998 Games.
