Olga Chaves: “In Spain, a soccer player has to have another job or she doesn’t survive”

The earlier you start, the better. This is applicable in many aspects of life or for any sporting, artistic or language level discipline. This is something that is very clear to the Ceuta athlete and teacher, Olga Chaves, who has been awarded the Vivencis 2022 Prize by Podemos Ceuta for being, precisely, a benchmark in sports in our city.

“I took it late, that’s why I invite the girls to start as soon as possible. If you start late, you lose a lot of things”, says Olga. This woman from Ceuta has practiced many sports throughout her life and now, although with more moderation due to her injuries and her seven knee operations. “Now I do sports with my head,” she says. Olga started with judo, her star sport, but she has also practiced paddle tennis, volleyball and soccer, as well as participating in races that help her stay in shape.

Judo, as she herself says, is her “king sport” and so much so, that she even has it tattooed. “It marked me,” she confesses. But, she also felt uneasy about soccer, since before arriving at her judo training, judogi and all, she would lie with the children on her street to play soccer, knowing that this would be followed by a scolding from her friend. mother. “It was the little he did on the street. I never had a coach, nor did I have the opportunity to be in a base team, ”she says.

That opportunity, however, would come to him later, as a result of his teaching studies and, on a slightly more professional level, with his transfer to Seville for work reasons. Soccer is a sport that requires technique and “now you see the girls who do those things”, but they have to keep working and making an effort. Olga, among other female athletes from our city, have been paving the way for those future generations of female athletes from Ceuta who have been going strong. And that now, they are the ones who have to “take the baton from those fighting women who are always trying to make everything the same for men and women,” she says.

And it is that, starting in the sport for Olga “has not been easy”, especially in Ceuta. This woman from Ceuta, on occasion, had to compete for Cádiz, even for Andalusia “because there were many obstacles”, as far as judo was concerned. But this whole situation is changing in small steps, but it is changing. Not only in Ceuta, but nationally and worldwide. “It has changed a lot, but it is beginning to change. This should have started many years ago and we have to continue, ”she points out.

“If they want to be footballers, let them show it, we cannot demand and not give what we have to give”

It is true that many have been achieved, but Olga is one of those who think that we must continue fighting, first us, but also men. “Here in Ceuta I have more friends who help me, more than girls”, she does not hesitate to indicate. For example, the United States Soccer Federation and the women’s team of the country have culminated their salary dispute and will have the same salary as the men’s team. “They have not achieved anything extra, it is what it has to be. They also expose their legs, they sacrifice themselves in their training and everything and here in Spain, a soccer player has to have another job or she does not survive, ”she points out.

In our country, for the moment, “we have achieved the issue of motherhood, that they keep us in the team” and, although they have “progressed in many little things”, this woman from Ceuta hopes that what happened in the US will be “the mirror in where we have to look at each other and keep fighting”. To do this, while they are girls, Olga only asks them to enjoy themselves “and to be what they want to be”, and if, for example, they want to be soccer players “to show it, to work, because we cannot demand if later we are not going to give what you really have to give”, he highlights.

Many are the girls from Ceuta who practice this sport in basic categories together with boys, because in our city there is “a lot of work ahead” in this aspect. This is why Olga points out that “a lot of work needs to be done in schools” so that these girls begin to find their niche. The children, for their part, when they see that one of their classmates “plays well in the field” they see them as equals, because if they see that “they are competing with her, they come in strong, because I have experienced it with girls and at recess ”, he comments.

This is the best way to show that they know how to play and not, as has been seen in many videos on social networks, in which professional players have dressed up as boys to show their worth. About this, Olga thinks that two different visions can be seen. On the one hand “so that they can see and take off the bandage, seeing what there is”. On the other, that it can be a detriment “that she has had to dress as a boy to demonstrate and it shouldn’t be like that”.

Experiences Award
This Monday, Olga received the Vivencias 2022 Award from Podemos Ceuta. For her “it was a very big surprise,” he assures EL PUEBLO, since he did not expect something like that. Moreover, she has confessed that “tears came to my eyes.” This 48-year-old woman from Ceuta, with a long sporting career, was very grateful for this recognition because, although, as she confirms, “I am used to awards and have always welcomed them with surprise”, but the fact that they see her efforts for so many years “it’s very nice”.

“What judo has given me, no other sport has given me”

Now they will have to spend a few days to fully enjoy this award. “I get very nervous when they give them to me, but when everything happens, that’s when I really start to enjoy it, because I remember everything I’ve done and that gives me the strength to never give up,” she explains. That strength, like the signs of judo, is something that she carries on her skin, tattooed, to always remember it.

First time: judo
Olga started judo as a child, only seven or eight years old. “I remember that she went with my little braids,” recalls this Ceuta, who went to the current ‘José Acosta’ to train. However, she had no one to compete with. “She competed against boys from here, because we were two or three girls,” she says.

Olga was growing up in this sport and turning years and went on to compete against boys “who came to do military service.” It was there, in a fight with one of them, that she seriously injured her knee. “In one of the techniques I turned and my foot was left facing forward, then it turned and the crossed ones broke,” she says.

And, with this, a series of events and injuries began that threw her back. “I got a little bit of a phobia from her, because they were recoveries after recoveries and she would already enter the tatami and I would tremble,” she shares. All of this left her “psychologically a bit shaken,” she explains. The recoveries were very long and when she returned to her level, a new injury arrived. “I already decided to dedicate myself to what education was and I moved away from the tatamis a bit.”

This sport has given Olga a lot. She has taught him values ​​such as “respect for the rival and the peace of mind that she gives you”, but she does not hesitate to highlight that it is a “highly demanding sport and that she makes you become stronger mentally. And physically. What judo has given me, no sport has given me, ”she asserts.
Second half: football

This woman from Ceuta began playing soccer during her time as a student teacher, having already left judo aside due to her injuries. “Here we had started with the beginnings of the federated league, there was nothing, only single and married parties,” she recalls. The man from Ceuta, and this is how Olga relates it, brought out “a few things, but nothing serious”. After this, she started a school league “that ended with the first federated league in Ceuta”, she explains.

When he arrived in Seville for work reasons – he had found a job as soon as he finished his studies – before settling in his house, he stopped in front of a sports center to ask if there was a women’s football team. “When I arrived in Seville, I asked and the women’s Híspalis, who were playing in the first division, were training,” she narrates, immediately remembering what the competition was like at that time and the long trips they had to make and without getting paid. But it was for Olga “a very nice experience”.

“The change in women’s sport should have started many years earlier”

This sport was never seen as a future, because it started late. “I have never been very good, but I was a physical wonder” thanks to his base as a judoka. “They put me on the left side, which went up and down, there was no need to cover me, because when they looked at me I was already in my place again”.

Extension: dreams to fulfill
She has also lived soccer from the bench as a regional coach for boys. Although, she has not been able to avoid confessing that she has a thorn in her side as a player: “I would have liked to debut at ‘Murube”. She has done it as a coach, since she fought for the girls to play there, but as a player she has not been able to be herself. “I fought for the girls to play there, knowing the consequences they were going to have, because it is a bigger field. What they have enjoyed there, no one takes away from them, ”she says.

In addition to this, Olga would have loved to be a professor at INEF, “but the injuries at that time pushed me back.” The fact of going to Seville to work and then returning to Ceuta as a teacher is something that cost her more. “And the injuries didn’t stop me,” she reiterates, noting that she was preparing for the tests.

However, she assures that she is very happy as a primary school teacher, in addition to being a coach in various sports. “This has given me life,” she says. But it is inevitable that she does not remember her past as a judoka, because she “was in some very good moments”, to later highlight that “I do not know if my goal would have been the Olympics”.

All this, moreover, is compatible with some fulfilled dreams such as being a mother and writing a book. ‘An, the princess with two moms’ from the Avant publishing house, is a story that this woman from Ceuta wrote to explain to her daughter why she has two moms.