Guillermo Allier, the Mexican athlete who knew badminton thanks to the rain

JOSE ANGEL RUEDA

Photo: Ricardo Escartín Mondragón and Allier

The memories in Guillermo Allier’s mind come fluently. At 87 years old, recently turned, the former Mexican badminton player recalls how those years changed his life. Destined to follow his father’s course as an outstanding swimmer, an overcast afternoon in the Sports Chapultepec prevented him from training in the water. What at the time seemed like a setback became a wink of fate.

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“There was a storm, it was precisely during these months that the rain began in Mexico City, a hailstorm fell that did not allow us to swim. It was the year 1955, so it was on a tour of the facilities that I found badminton, which was covered. So I started practicing it, and for six months I combined badminton with swimming until in ’56 I was invited by the Badminton Federation, along with another partner, as the best prospects to play in the US Open. We went as rookies, and as rookies we came back”, confessed Don Guillermo between laughs, in a conversation with ESTO.

Long days of training soon paid off and the badminton player began to stand out on the national plane, where, after several sub-championships, he was crowned in the National Badminton Championship in 1965 together with Salvador Peniche, cough. His name, along with that of her sister Carolina, also appears among the champions of the first force in mixed doubles at the end of the sixties, winning three National Championships in a row.

Before his career allowed him to live some special momentssuch as Mexico’s participation in the traditional Thomas Cup, considered by many to be the most prestigious tournament within the specialty.

“We had a great opportunity that the Thomas Cup began for the first time in Mexico, the most important tournament in badmintonI was proud to have participated in 1964, later in ’67 and then ’70. They were experiences, we weren’t going to win, but we were going to experience what was there”, he recalls wistfully.

Among the most precious memories of don Guillermo is victorious at the Western State Open, at the Manhattan Beach Badminton Club in California. There she heard for the first time the beautiful notes of the Mexican anthem, with uncontrollable emotion.

“This of Playing the national anthem abroad makes your breath catch, I pulled and couldn’t find it, and the tears, and you can’t do anything but wait for the hymn to end and the applause, it’s a satisfaction that can’t be narrated. It is indescribable to hear our anthem in a foreign country,” she said, through tears.

After more than 15 years as a professional, the badminton player ended his career after a defeat with Roy Díaz Gonzálezwho would eventually become one of the best exponents of Mexican badminton.

“I finished in 1975, because then a child, Roy Díaz González beat me and put me 6-1 and 6-0. That’s where my life as an athlete ended. You have to know how to withdraw so as not to make a fool of yourself. Everything has a limit, ”she confessed, maturely.

Today Mr William he not only preserves the memories, or the friendships that sport left him, like the one he had with diver Carlos Girón, but also a good number of newspapers and trophies. Objects have acquired over the years a new meaning.

“My mother told me that I was a junk dealer, for keeping so many newspapers and trophies. I had the opportunity to have more than 100 trophies, many of them were stored in my parents’ house. It was to cut up the newspaper and carry it. What did I keep them for? I did not know it, however, years later, my grandson Ricardo gave them courage, he began to read the newspapers and gave them order. It’s nice to remember what I did, but more than anything I planted it, planting sport in them”

In retrospect, that rainy afternoon changed his life, the sport left him something more than the victories. “I represented order, respect for my teammates and my enemies, having a responsibility generated by me but first representing Deportivo Chapultepec, then Mexico, that was a great satisfaction,” he concluded.

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