Sant Cugat del Vallès“He was always the only boy”, remembers Pau Ribes. “At the beginning it was surprising. You went to see a competition and you thought… what is this guy doing in the pool”, admits the president of the Catalan Swimming Federation, Ramon Bosch. At the age of 27, Pau Ribes, from Valais, has decided to put an end to a career in which he has made history, because he has become the first Spanish man to compete in a world that has so far been 100% female, synchronized swimming. “She has been persevering, chasing a dream. She is admirable,” explains Bosch about Ribes, who on the day of her farewell gathered the whole world of synchronized swimming around her: teammates, coaches, family members, authorities… ” He is a person who has been loved by everyone,” says Gemma Mengual.
Sometimes a person’s life can change when they least expect it. When Pau was a child his parents decided to buy tickets to a synchronized swimming show. “No one at home practiced competitive swimming; we went to this show at the jumping pools in Montjuïc like when you go to the theater, to enjoy ourselves. The show was called a dream of water. But I fell in love with what I saw and it was clear that I wanted to be an artistic swimmer,” he explains. The problem, of course, was that no boys were practicing the sport. It was a field reserved only for women. “There are too much ignorance and negative stereotypes,” adds Pau, who has not had it easy to “do what he wanted”, enduring mockery and derogatory comments.[Quan era petit tenia] hyperactivity, an attention deficit. I was having a hard time, I was literally pulling my hair out, it hurt. My parents decided that they didn’t want to take the easy way out like other families did, that of medicating me. They supported me and understood that sport was a way. No medication. And a sport that started as therapy has ended up being my life. I didn’t want to go to school, where I had a hard time and didn’t feel understood, I wanted to be in the water. Thanks to my family, I was able to continue my studies and my career as a swimmer,” he explains. “I’ve been happy in the water. Besides, music also liberated me. The synchro, so it had both, water and music. I did anything to avoid going to school, I wanted to swim all day. Swimming brought me out of the darkness, offering me a world of light and water.”
“My father has always looked after me. He always remembers how in the championships there were 200 girls and only one boy. It took courage, it was not easy, my father also received questions, the beginning was not easy”, he remembers, although he received the support of CN Granollers, the club where he started. Then he would go through CN Sabadell and, finally, his last club, Les Franqueses. Little by little, he found people who helped him. “Both those who have supported me and those who did not believe in me have made me stronger. But I suffered especially at the moment when my female peers could continue to compete and I could no longer. In formative categories I could be in the pool, but when it was time to make the step up to the absolute category I had to retire,” he recalls. Those girls who had started out as their teammates and then their friends became women and continued to compete. He couldn’t. For more than a year, he swam alone. The door was closed, but opened in 2014 when the International Swimming Federation allowed men to compete in synchronized, unlike the Olympic Committee, which still does not include them in the Games. “When I stopped competing it was hard, I was in a complicated situation. My teammates had made the jump and I couldn’t. And then, in 2014, they called me to tell me that with the new regulations I could compete. The head of the Spanish team at the time, Esther Jaumà, offered me the possibility. The truth is that I was a little embarrassed, I hadn’t trained how to play for a long time. I was shit. But after so many years of fight had to try.” In addition, his partner would be one of the best specialists of all time, Gemma Mengual, winner of two Olympic medals and 24 World Cups. “When I saw him for the first time I thought: what are we going to do with him? And look how he went; how he worked, how he improved, he is an admirable person.” In their World Cup debut in 2015 in Kazan they finished fifth. Then, competing with Berta Ferreras and Emma Garcia, she won two silver and four bronze medals in Europeans.
“Now they have changed the regulations. It will be more demanding, as the level rises. Between these new regulations and the pandemic, all were signs that it was time to stop. Elite athletes always try to perform above our possibilities. And I could no longer offer my best version. After 20 years it’s time to fold. At the age of 27 I have to start a new life. You can’t make a living from sport, unfortunately,” he reasons. He will continue to be linked to the synchronized in Les Franqueses or helping the association Panteres Grogues, which uses sport within the LGBTI community, where he has been a coach. His new job, however, will be to open a barbershop academy. “My great-grandfather was one and he had an artist grandmother, a painter. We will create in a different way,” he explained on the day of his retirement, surrounded by relatives, friends and his romantic partner, Marta. “Every choreography, every couple in the pool, every day has been worth it. You have to leave it to make way for the young people who are paving the way”, declares Ribes, who since the 2016/17 season received a CAR scholarship to pursue their dreams That’s why he wanted to say goodbye to the CAR, surrounded by his people, who were moved by Pau’s last performance, at this year’s Europeans in Rome, accompanied by Emma Garcia to the rhythm of the musical Catswhere he won two silver medals.
“It’s not easy to be a pioneer,” says the general secretary of Sport and Physical Activity, Anna Caula. “The challenge of breaking stereotypes, the challenge of breaking views, the challenge that both men and women, who know that we are not equal, do have to guarantee that we have equal opportunities, and that we have an open horizon to choose from”, add. In fact, when he started he was the only man and now the Catalan Federation has 29 licences, 12 of which are from young people who are coming in strong, inspired by the work of Pau Ribes.
