“There is still a lot to be done for female athletes to see that they can be mothers and that it is not the end of their sporting career”
PARIS, 7 Sep. (by EUROPA PRESS special correspondent Ramón Chamorro) –
The Spanish Elena Congost still cannot believe that this Sunday she will run, after “a lot of work and dedication”, the marathon of the Paralympic Games in Paris, eight years after being crowned champion in Rio 2016 and after being a mother of four children, and she is clear that “the most difficult thing” in order to qualify has been the issue of “rest” and “believing in herself again” as an “athlete”.
“I really don’t believe it. They told me this a year ago and I wouldn’t have believed it even in my wildest dreams because I didn’t think I could feel like an athlete again, get into the form I was in, or even surpass it, and here we are. It’s been a year of hard work and dedication,” Congost told Europa Press.
The Catalan, a visually impaired athlete who only sees 5 percent of her vision due to a congenital optic nerve atrophy that affects both eyes equally, and also in the 1,500m in London 2012, tried at first “to see what happens” and to “try to do the minimum”, but little by little she “evolved” and “assimilated the work”. “I also thought that mentally it would be very difficult for me to suffer and manage those difficult moments again, and it has been the opposite. I don’t know if I have come back stronger, more mature or more aware of everything, but being here has been a gift,” she stressed.
The marathon runner, who easily managed to win by six minutes, the minimum in Seville, in the only marathon she has run, does not forget that her Paralympic gold was already “her lifelong dream” and then she achieved “the goal of starting a family.” “It is very easy to fall into complacency, but elite athletes and we love what we do, we always have that love for work and we will continue here,” she said.
Her two oldest daughters, Arlet (6 years old) and Abril (4), have come to Paris, while Ona (3) and the last to arrive, Lluc, have stayed “at home with their grandparents.” “I think the older ones are not yet aware until they see everything that happens at the Games, in a marathon, streets closed and lots of people shouting and cheering you on. Then they will be aware because now what they have seen is that every day, even on holidays, I have to go to training and they have to stay with the babysitter or with their father on the weekend,” she said.
In any case, she believes that all this is “also one of the things that motivates you when you are a mother, being able to transmit these values to your children, so that they see the effort that things cost, whether they go well or go badly, they will see all the work that has been behind it and it will be able to enrich them.”
“The hardest thing has probably been believing in myself again and feeling like an athlete and feeling that self-confidence. And then, on the other hand, the break, with four children, one very young, who doesn’t sleep through the night,” she added, confessing that “perhaps as a mother” she also had some ups and downs when she went to run in Seville to qualify. “It was part of getting here and perhaps that’s what has been the hardest for me, perhaps on a mental level,” she remarked, confident that she was able to “manage everything more or less well.”
In any case, she is clear that “little by little, more visibility is being given” to situations like hers because “there are also more women who dare to take the leap to becoming mothers before finishing their sporting career.” “This makes federations and brands reconsider contracts and reconsider situations, but there is still a long way to go, both for sportswomen who see that they can be mothers and that this is not the end of a sporting career, and for entities,” she warned.
For the Catalan, the bronze medal won by judoka Marta Arce, also a mother of a large family, provides this “visibility to those who come after her” and for this reason she also wants to seek “a good result” this Sunday for her children and “for the women who come after her”.
HER HUSBAND, THE ONE WHO MADE THE ‘SPARK’ AWAKEN
On the other hand, Elena Congost did not hide the fact that “most people” were surprised by her return and told her that it was “impossible”, although not her husband, who was an elite athlete and who “lived through everything” that happened in Rio. “He was the one who little by little, since the baby was born in April, told me to try because I had nothing to lose, he was a bit the architect of all this,” she said. “These days, when I was so tired, I would tell him ‘It’s your fault’,” she added, laughing.
“In the end, look, it made me wake up that ‘little spark’ that I perhaps had already thought was over and feel like an athlete again. And, in fact, many days I went to train and I was very tired, but it has also served to separate me from that role of mother that sometimes traps you 24 hours a day and seems to nullify you as a person. It was my space to be myself outside of motherhood, to get out of the loop of children and parenting, and to be an athlete, it was also my time of meditation and mentally it has also been very good for me,” she said.
Her coach “didn’t expect it” either. “I was already thinking of withdrawing, as I could do because no one had said it, but we all took it for granted,” she recalled. “I told her if we could meet up one day and I suggested it to her and she immediately asked me if I was willing to give it my all because it was going to be very difficult. She saw it, just like me, as a bit of madness because we had five months to prepare for the Seville Marathon and to do the minimum,” said the double, she had to do the minimum there.
“But after two months we already saw it as possible and we saw it getting a little bit closer, until we really told ourselves that it could be possible,” said Congost, who is now guided “by training” to get an idea of his chances in the 2024 Paris marathon.
“WHOEVER IS NOT STRONG WILL PAY MORE”
She has been “strong and well throughout this preparation and the last few weeks,” although she admits that “these last few days are a bit misleading because those feelings of accumulated fatigue come out and they are not what you expect.” “Sometimes that makes you lose track of how you are at the moment, but a priori I am fine,” she clarified.
A test that is expected to be different from the one that crowned it in Rio de Janeiro where “there was a lot of heat and a lot of humidity”, but with “the good part of it was a closed circuit with a ground that was perfect and a profile that was totally flat on a seafront promenade”. “Here, everything changes. The humidity will be very high, but the temperature drops and the circuit, the asphalt and the cobblestones are not in the best possible condition,” he explained.
“And then the profile is a bit complicated. It has quite a few climbs and descents, some quite long, the last one on the Champs Elysees being longer, at 20 and from 28 to 30 another. The issue of the circuit will be more complicated to manage, but it also means that those who are not strong will pay more. We all race in the same conditions and whoever has prepared best will be the one to win, it will be interesting to know how to manage it,” he concluded.