MADRID, 26 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish athlete Miriam Martínez, silver medal in the shot put in class F36 (athletes with cerebral palsy) at the Tokyo Paralympic Games, acknowledges that Athletic Club gave her back “hope and enthusiasm for sport” and that she feels “very identified” with the Bilbao club with which she shares “that perseverance and fighting for what you are passionate about.”
“Athletic gave me back my hope and enthusiasm for the sport. Those lights of San Mamés and the gift that my mother gave me of the team’s jersey and tracksuit are the best of my life. I feel very identified with the club, for fighting for what you are passionate about, for that perseverance, “Martinez confessed in an interview published this Tuesday by the website of the Spanish Sports Federation for People with Cerebral Palsy and Acquired Brain Damage.
The Alicante woman, who was working in Bilbao when she suffered a stroke and who from the window of her room in the clinic where she was admitted for a month and a half saw the stadium, knows that it would be “a dream” to do the honor roll somewhere party of the Biscayan team in ‘La Catedral’. “Soccer is my passion, it has always run through my veins,” said the shot putter, who played futsal before suffering her brain damage and was already a fan of the ‘Lions’ since her childhood.
In this sense, although his sport is now athletics, he does not give up playing the Spanish soccer 7 team in the World Cup next year in Salou (Tarragona). “I hope they can let me practice it in parallel without my career as an athlete being cut short. I don’t want to choose between something that gives me life and what gave it back, I show that the most important thing is passion, I will do everything possible to be the year that comes with my companions, “he admitted.
Regarding his success in Tokyo 2020, he remembers how hard it was since he suffered a spasticity outbreak, a strong muscle disorder that left his body blocked, just on the day of the Opening Ceremony of the appointment. “My disease attacks you without warning, it does not give you the option to choose, the only way is to cling to what moves you and makes you vibrate in life, in my case it is sport,” he warns.
And one day after his competition, his body “seemed like a broken toy”, but with the help of Kim López and Héctor Cabrera he found the strength to train the technique by trying to throw a folded towel that served as a ball. “Kim held me and Hector stood in front while they rubbed ice on my neck and legs to break the spasticity. It was exciting and a relief, throwing that towel was like catching the medal before time,” he celebrated.
“I didn’t even know if I would throw three meters. The steel ball was not only pushed by me, but also by the medical service, my colleagues, my family, my friends … They have been my wings when my feet did not work, we have won a war together. That filled me with all the vital bars and turned my life 180 degrees again, it was an immense happiness, I got to touch the sky of Tokyo and now I am on a cloud from which I do not want to get off, “said Martínez.