MADRID, 3 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish Paralympic sport will try not to tiptoe through the Winter Games that Beijing hosts from this Friday until March 13, although it attends with a very small delegation and with few options to maintain its streak in the medal table in an appointment marked by the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has finally cost the Russian and Byelorussian athletes their presence.
The Asturian ‘rider’ Víctor González, from the Spanish Sports Federation for People with Physical Disabilities, and the Catalan cross-country skier Pol Makuri Redolad, from the Spanish Sports Federation for People with Cerebral Palsy and Acquired Brain Injury, will be the only two representatives at the meeting to which Spain has traveled with a total delegation of nine people under the strict restrictions imposed by the coronavirus.
Both athletes will bear the responsibility of representing the Spanish winter Paralympic sport, which is facing a difficult stage after some good recent years supported above all by the alpine skiing couple formed by Jon Santacana and Miguel Galindo. The visually impaired skier won nine medals, six of them with the Aragonese guide, but four years ago in PyeongChang (South Korea) they put an end to his Paralympic journey and have left the most successful sport a bit orphan, winner of 39 of the 43 metals of the winter national medal table, which has added some medal in Games since 1988.
In 2018, Spain climbed the podium twice, since in addition to the silver Santacana and Galindo, Astrid Fina also added a bronze, the first for snowboarding, but the Catalan also decided to leave the sporting activity and causing a period to open of transition in which there seems to be more optimism for 2026.
VÍCTOR GONZÁLEZ, SECOND GAMES, POL MAKURI, DEBUT
The first to make his debut will be Víctor González, the flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony this Friday and the most ‘veteran’ since he participated in the PyeongChang Games. The Asturian, who competes in the SB-LL1 class, now comes with more experience accumulated in these four years of the cycle and in search of being closer to the diplomas after being thirteenth in the ‘boardercross’ modality and twelfth, and finalist, in the ‘banked slalom’.
The 51-year-old man from Oviedo, who broke his C5 and C6 vertebrae practicing his sport in 2015, faces the event after being eighth in ‘cross’ and thirteenth in ‘banked slalom’ at the World Championships in Lillehammer (Norway) last month January. He will start this Sunday with the cross qualifiers looking to get into the next day’s rounds and on the 12th he will compete in banked slalom.
“Repeating in the Games makes me very excited, it means coming back with a more mature mentality to face unexpected events. My goals are to enjoy myself, do my best, and if I succeed, I will surely get the highest possible position. If it translates into bringing a diploma or medal, I hope we all celebrate it,” said González on the day of the team’s presentation.
For his part, Pol Makuri Redolad will make his Paralympic debut in cross-country skiing, despite the fact that he has been practicing this sport for several years at an international level. The 29-year-old from Barcelona will be the first Spanish athlete with cerebral palsy to participate in the Paralympic Winter Games and the first to do so in his sport since 1998 in Nagano (Japan). In the history, the three medals of Miguel Ángel Pérez Tello from Granada, two silvers in Innsbruck in 1988 and a bronze in Tignes-Albertville in 1992.
The Catalan, who will be the flag bearer at the Closing Ceremony, will compete in the 20 km classic style, the test in which he looks most competitive and in which he will debut on Monday 7, in the Sprint (1.3 km ), 9th, and in the 12.5 km freestyle, 12th. In these last two, he was 20th and 15th respectively in the past World Championships.
“I am aware of the league I play in, but I will fight every event. The goal is to open the door for other athletes with cerebral palsy to go to the Games. I hope that my example can encourage people with cerebral palsy and brain damage. acquired to fight for their dreams. If you work hard and work 200 percent, disability will not be an obstacle to achieving your goals,” he said in an interview on the FEDPC website.