Oviedo (EFE).- The Olympic badminton champion Carolina Marín, who this Friday will collect the Princess of Asturias Sports Award 2024, has assured that she is “very happy” to receive the award because it “comforts” her after the serious injury suffered in the Olympic Games. of Paris, for which he still needs time.
In a press conference after his arrival in Oviedo, Marín admitted that the injury has marked an “important point” in his life and his sporting career.
He stated that he “still” needs time, and that he is in “no hurry” after initially wanting to “hang up his racket.”
The player, who has indicated that once time passes and reflects, she sees things in a “different way”, has acknowledged that she would be “very sad” if the injury took her off the court, which she will try to avoid by returning to training to being able to retire on a court.
Marín (Huelva, 1993) has been “very happy and happy” to be able to be in Oviedo, a moment she had been waiting for for several months, from the first minute she was told that she was going to be proclaimed winner of the Princess of Asturias award. Sports, something that “I have been dreaming of for several years.”
She has been “fundamentally grateful” for this “great recognition” for her entire sporting career, a path in which “the medals are very nice”, although she is left with “all that effort, sacrifice, a lot of work and also many resignations.” “What is behind it to achieve great rewards, medals and dreams.”
I have a very nice week ahead of me,” said the Huelva native after the “incredible” reception she had in Oviedo: “I will never” be able to forget the moment when I walked out to the doors of the hotel and the bagpipes began to play. So thank you very much to everyone.”
A prize for badminton
The Olympic champion in Rio 2016, gold medalist in three World Cups and seven Europeans, has confessed to feeling “very happy”, especially because the Princess of Sports has recognized everything she has done during her life, in which “thank you to sport” I have achieved “many things”, “big dreams that, perhaps in Spain, were something totally unthinkable in a sport that no one knew about, in which suddenly a girl starts to win great things.”
“It is an award not only for me, but above all also for my sport. Having made it so that badminton is talked about throughout the country, people know what it is, and much more importantly, that many people even want to practice it.”
After remembering that in the beginning he participated in several tournaments in Asturias, he has indicated that he is “especially excited” to return because it makes him remember many things from his childhood.
Always get something positive
Regarding the serious knee injury he suffered at the Paris Olympics when he was about to qualify for the Olympic final, he stated that from “every difficult or negative moment” he always tries to get “something positive,” and one of the positive things about That mishap has been “being able to spend time at home with the family,” after leaving at the age of 14, and since then not having been able to spend “more than a week with them” in all these years.
Marín has cited her family, especially her mother, who accompanied her in the press room, and her work team as the “driving engine” in the stage in which she has had a “very bad time” because “she has not It has been easy to get out of where I was” until reaching the present day, in which after “reflecting” he sees “another perspective.”
In her opinion, it was “totally unthinkable” that a Spanish girl could dominate in a “so Asian” sport, so having broken that barrier and won “has its merit,” and the Princess of Sports Award “recognizes all the merit behind it in a country like Spain, in a totally unknown and very minority sport.”
A reference for the youngest
The Andalusian has defended the importance of an athlete “enjoying what he does” at the beginning of the activity he practices, and has drawn attention to the importance of having a national reference, which in his case “obviously” did not exist, while today, children “can have that luck” by having it, highlighting the values it demonstrates “both within sight and outside.”
Regarding the main qualities that a high-level badminton player needs to have, he mentioned “a lot of speed, changes of pace, resistance, and a little strength”, necessary to “eject the shuttlecock to where you want to send it on the court”.
In relation to the help that psychologists provide to athletes, Marín has stated that she has been working with these professionals since she was 15, to whom she is “very grateful” because they have always taken her by the hand and taken her forward. .
EFE
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