Every tattoo hides a story. A meaning for those who decide to carry it on their skin for life. And Carolina Marín decided to tattoo the word ‘Resilience’ on her left side. “For me it means adapting to any change that life has put in front of me. Overcoming any obstacle. Here I am after everything that life has hit me with, much more mature and experienced,” she answers, looking at her ribs.
What happened to Carolina, three-time world champion and one Olympic champion in Tokyo 2020, is that in 2019 she tore the cruciate ligament in her right knee. And in 2021, two months before the Tokyo event, she destroyed the one on her left. And in July 2020, her father, Gonzalo, died after an accident that kept him in the hospital for several months. Too many things and too much time, eight years, without being able to go to the Games. “I have never given up,” she smiles.
The badminton megastar, an Asian sport, from Huelva is already in Paris, where she arrived on Monday to train at INSEP, the High Performance Centre of France, because her coach Fernando Rivas was hired by the hosts in 2022 to try to reproduce the ‘Carolina Miracle’. She will begin competing foreseeably on the 27th (the medals are awarded on August 5).
And what kind of Carolina is she? “A different one, I don’t know if she’s stronger or not. When I went to Rio I was 23 years old and now I’m 31. I’m much more mature, experienced and badminton has changed a lot. I’m up against players eight or nine years younger. Both the plays and the matches are twice as long and that requires much more physical and mental discipline,” she analyses. A new ecosystem in which she has managed to survive successfully. Last year she reached seven finals. She won two and, above all, she was runner-up in the World Championships and in the Masters Cup. In 2024, she has been champion at the All England, the Wimbledon shuttle, the Swiss Open and for the eighth time at the European Championships. She has achieved her goal of being fourth in the ranking to have a more benevolent draw.
But all of this doesn’t come for free. Before leaving for Paris, he had to take the umpteenth step forward at the CAR in Sierra Nevada, at 2,320 metres, where oxygen is scarce and where Rivas, the man who before Rio left a phrase that still resonates (“I wouldn’t put my daughter through Carolina’s preparation”), intensified the loads to be able to face that agonising badminton, of endless exchanges. “We have taken real times of plays and we have reproduced them both with tourniquets on the legs and with hypoxia,” reveals Marín. That is, he plays with rubber bands that reduce the blood flow in his extremities or with a mask that simulates a higher altitude. All to achieve greater resistance.
“It will probably be my last Games; I have to be honest.”
Carolina Marin
Thanks to the Team Spain Elite programme, which has provided a 50 million euro grant from the High Council of Sports for Olympic and Paralympic athletes with a chance of winning a medal, Carolina has also been able to bring rivals to the CAR in Madrid to train with. “Three years ago, when I suffered a second knee injury, I started to have two Malaysian and one Indonesian sparring partner and we have introduced more quality instead of quantity,” she says, while giving thanks for being able to “support” a very large team. For example, she was able to travel with all of them (including her psychologist María Martínez) to the French Open at the Arena Porte La Chapelle, the Olympic venue, to visualise what she will find. “I competed there in March and it didn’t go well, but I like it in terms of sensations. I am used to playing in very large halls in China and this one is also one of them,” she explains.
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“In Sierra Nevada, my knee has respected me, I have pushed myself beyond the maximum and I have not felt pain. I have also pushed myself to the limit, with frustrating situations that I have overcome, and I have gotten to know myself a little better,” says the Andalusian about these last few weeks. All for the goal of gold. For that medal that has been on her wallpaper for months (she also did it in Rio). Because she wants to leave on a high note. “They will surely be my last Games, I have to be honest and realistic with myself and my people,” announces the human incarnation of the word ‘Resilience’.
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2024-07-16 23:48:03
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