A retirement at age 18, an exile to Greece … the story of a love that sport united

The waterpolista Blai Mullarach and the former gymnast Esther Escolar met in the CAR of Sant Cugat de cros and ah they continue

A corridor of only 100 meters from the High Performance Center (CAR) of Sant Cugat requires half an hour if you walk along the waterpolista Blai Mallarach and the former gymnast Esther School. How are you? How are the children going ?, everyone asks, from the receptionist of the facilities to the waiter of the coffee maker, and it is not for less.

He has been doing concentrations in the center since he was 14 years old and she lived and studied here from 11 to 21. In the CAR they grew up and in the CAR they met. For those coincidences that make couples, they built the changing rooms of the outdoor swimming pool inside the rhythmic gymnastics module and every evening Mallarach and his youth teammates interrupt the School's rehearsals with their jumps and their screams.

The troglodytes, the gymnast coach called them and with one of those troglodytes she now shares marriage and two children of three and two years, Biel Y Daniela. They were so close to the CAR that they now live only a few meters away. Before there was no cell phone, there was no Netflix on the laptop, and when you had just finished your dinner you went to the coffee maker downtown to play football, watch TV or talk to someone from another sport to disconnect from yours. One summer, which is when we had more free time, we started dating, with 18 years, and so far, Mallarach remembers, that at 32 he is in one of the best moments of his sports career.

The left-handed attacker is now one of the referents of Spain who points to a medalist at the Tokyo Olympics after the silver was hung in the last World Cup and in the last two Europeans. The gray times of the team were left behind. In the tournaments after his debut at the 2009 World Cup in Rome, Mallarach lived through everything in the national team, even few infumables.

After the Ro Games, in 2016, I decided to leave it seriously. I had not turned 30, I was 28 or 29, but I had a bad time, things do not go well … Good luck that I did not because now I enjoy again, to believe, confesses the water polo player, with an experience in the backpack That forced him to continue. His wife, Escolar, had to leave gymnastics soon, too soon, and his example forced the water polo player to try to enjoy his sport as much as possible, to squeeze it to the fullest.

An injury and an exile

Selection partner of Almudena Cid or Carolina Rodrguez, School debut in an absolute World Cup at age 15 and had the Olympic Games of Pekn 2008 as I dream when a knee injury took away the clubs, the tape, the ball and the hoop. He had just reached the age of majority and, although he tried to return in the following years, in the end he had to give up gymnastics, the CAR and, in short, almost everything he had lived since childhood. Luckily, almost everything.

I had a hard time, it was a bit difficult, but I had to face it with maturity. I tried to continue as a coach and it helped me a lot to start the relationship with Blai because I saw that there was life beyond the CAR, gymnastics … he was a very important support point for me then and, throughout his career, I have tried to be also for him, says Escolar, and he has no reason. In 2012, when the crisis sank the salaries of the Spanish water polo, Mallarach first went to Croatia and then to Greece always with School. They could only return in 2016, when the cache of him had multiplied, and the family called.

Now, Mallarach already settled in the Atltic Barceloneta, the children of both begin to flirt with the sport: the eldest, Biel, now nothing and asks for his hat, his ball. He likes it a lot and says he wants to play water polo, but he is very small. I would love that both of you followed my steps because my experience in the sport has been very gratifying, reflects Mallarach, who cro crooked tennis with Tommy Robredo and that in the water a long family tradition continues.

His grandfather, swimmer and basketball player, introduced water polo in his town, Olot, with small games in the river Fluvi, and his parents were also swimmers. Mayor palmars can even show Escolar, whose father played in Second Division at Valencia Mestalla and Castelln. The sport has its things, but it offers you wonderful relationships and difficult values ​​to find in other areas of life, she finishes and with such a song to the sport, to love, the two say goodbye before facing another eternal corridor of only 100 meters in the CAR, your CAR.