Marín and Rodríguez have managed to excel in badminton and triathlon. /
Both athletes have recalled their experiences to make visible a problem that affects thousands of children and help to deal with it
Both are Olympic and world champions in their sports and an example of self-improvement despite the fact that during their school years they suffered the scourge of bullying or bullying, a silenced problem despite the fact that it is estimated that it affects 1 in 4 children in Spain. The Galician paratriathlete Susana Rodríguez and the Huelva badminton player Carolina Marín have shared their experiences with this form of harassment in their youth and how they managed to deal with it within the framework of a campaign by the Cola Cao Foundation, which has recently created the Asociación No Al School Bullying (NACE).
“I always had to live with comments like ‘That girl has white hair’, or ‘she is ugly’, or Snowflake, or Snow White…”, explained Rodríguez, who in addition to being a triathlete is a doctor and has battled against the Covid-19 on the front line. Being born to her with albinism caused her a serious visual deficiency that did not make it easy for her to make friends either and even made her regret being that way. “Listening to all that doesn’t do you any good, it makes you realize that you’re different in the bad sense of the word,” confesses she, who last year managed to be on the cover of Time magazine. Her circle of friends and her family were the ones who gave her the confidence to become the great athlete she is today.
At 28 years old, Carolina Marín assures that the harsh experience she suffered with bullying when she was 9 or still marks her life. Her classmates from the school she attended in Huelva did not treat her well and made fun of issues such as her hair color or her body hair. “They told me that if I had a mustache … and in the end when one is small and they are messing with the same thing all the time, that marks you,” stresses the racket player, who insists that these types of attitudes make you “feel inferior ».
Marín recommends that young people who are going through the same thing seek help in their closest environment, whether it be their family, friends or the center’s management, and that they look for other spaces to make friends, for example in sports practice. Rodríguez, for his part, encourages him to value the richness of difference and agrees that sport helped him get out of that situation. “In sports I have found an environment in which I have never felt different,” he confessed.
