MADRID, 13 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish karate fighter María Torres assures that her historic world gold medal in the 68+ kilos category last November has “absolutely changed nothing”, but that it has given “more visibility” to her modality, while recognizing that this title “surpasses everything bad” that has happened to him, such as staying out of the Tokyo Olympics.
“Absolutely nothing has changed for me. I am very happy to be world champion, but my life has not changed. Now there are many more people who know me and gold has given me more visibility to that part of my sport that was a little more hidden like kumite and on that side I’m happy,” said María Torres in an interview with Europa Press.
The woman from Malaga has “noticed” since her success in Dubai that “many people” did not know that there was no current world champion in her modality. “I am glad and happy that people know about kumite thanks to this step that I have taken,” she admits.
The title achieved at the end of November was “a finishing touch to a very difficult year”, also marked by the “fat stick” of not being able to qualify for the Games after losing at “the last moment” in the Pre-Olympic. “I think everything happens for a reason and if she hadn’t lost that fight, maybe she wouldn’t have been world champion,” she warned.
“No,” she replied when asked if she would trade her world gold for being able to be in Tokyo 2020. “Right now I’m in my room with my medal,” she said with a smile. “Some Games are amazing and I would have loved to be there, but being world champion is being world champion and I don’t change that,” she added.
In addition, he knows the hardness of his sport and how all the work of many years can be lost for a small detail. “In the end, what hooks us in this sport is that many times, you try as hard as you try and no matter how long you have dedicated to a goal, you don’t achieve it. These things happen and then you become world champion and that surpasses to all the bad things that have happened before”, underlined the Andalusian.
On the other hand, Torres does not hide that he has “noticed” what it means that his sport has been Olympic. “It brings much more visibility and support. It’s a Games and that’s the best there is in sport, and it’s true that there’s a pretty big difference between when it was and now that it isn’t,” he said.
“Now everything is much more difficult because in the Olympic process you have an ADO scholarship, more aid, many more companies are involved and now, instead, you have to look for a little more life on your own if you want to dedicate yourself professionally to this sport”, pointed out the karate fighter, who sees “very complicated” for the IOC to rectify and her sport will be Olympic in 2024. “There is always hope, but it is a bit difficult because enough time has passed and it has not been rectified”, she stressed.
THE IMPORTANCE OF HIS SPORTS PSYCHOLOGIST AND HIS FATHER
Torres recognizes the difficulty of combining a sports career with a work career in this way because without this aid “at the competition level it is very difficult” and gives examples of other countries such as Italy where their karate fighters are part of the police or the army and That is why “they dedicate themselves fully to karate and when they finish competing they have a job”, while in Spain they have to “seek life at the sponsorship level” to do so.
Looking to the future, she is looking forward to a 2022 “full of goals” with the European Championship, the World Games to which she has qualified for her gold in Dubai and the Mediterranean Games, events in which she will be “the rival to beat” in her weight for her status as world champion. “Everyone will want to beat me, it’s what I would do, but it’s something that I have quite controlled and that I work with my sports psychologist. As soon as the World Cup finished, she told me that I had to work on it and that’s what we’re doing,” he explained.
And it is that for the athlete, this figure “is essential” for her “performance” and for her “normal life”. “Sometimes he talks more with her about my daily life than about sports. She is a figure that relaxes me, that has helped me a lot to grow as a person and as an athlete and when it comes to performing, she helps me a lot and takes away all the doubts that could arise in a high-level competition”, he explained.
“In the combat modality it takes three minutes and what you plan to do you must do in thousandths. You have to be careful that your nerves and doubts don’t eat you up and that you don’t do what you think. Psychologically you have to have very clear ideas in the tatami and knowing that anything can happen and not come down if something goes wrong or up if it goes well. The body and mind must be balanced”, he admitted.
In addition, María Torres has as a coach her father, Eugenio, multiple European champion, and “the main figure” who encouraged him to do karate. “I wanted to be like him and when I started to practice it and see what the competition was like, I got hooked, I had a great time and I realized that it was what I liked, it was the sport that I liked the most,” she said.
“My father and I get along great, he is clear about what the tatami is and what home is, when he is a father and when he is a coach. As a coach he is very hard, but when he is a father he is a sun and I am very grateful because he is that has made me comfortable in my house and on the tatami”, he remarked. “He has taught me everything since I was three years old and when I won gold I looked at him and thought about how he had to feel, ‘freaked out’ with him,” she said about the moment of sharing his victory in Dubai.
María Torres, who has teaching as a vocation, also helps her father in the gym he has and where she celebrates seeing “many girls” training with her. “I teach from three to ten years old and every time I see that there is more equality and for me that is my goal, that girls are just as comfortable doing a martial art and I will continue working so that everyone can get to where I am or at least try it,” he said.
“I am who I am thanks to karate, my personality, my capacity for effort. Karate has mainly taught me to calm down, respect for others and perseverance,” said the Malaga native.