Lydia Valentin This coming day the 13th he receives the María de Villota award for his entire career. An award that has been won for those three Olympic medals (gold in London, silver in Tokyo and bronze in Rio) that propelled her in the achievements and in this sport that she knew how to put on the map, weightlifting.
It is one of the keys to Valentín’s sporting success, as she went against the trend of many of her schoolmates who opted for other sporting activities while she opted to learn to lift weights. «I always say that weightlifting chose me. I was a girl who really liked sports, I always went to practice when I was little, playing basketball or athletics, and one day the weightlifting coach proposed it to me,” says Valentín.
However, he entered into a sport that has always had the suspicion of doping as a companion of fatigue. The Leonese also spoke out about that aspect, which left her without enjoying the podium moment in Beijing 2008 and London 2012 and she received her silver and gold on a delayed basis. «I do not stand on the podium in London or Beijingin Rio thank God, yes. They were mixed feelings because on the one hand they gave me the medal, for example, from London, before Rio, but it was a bittersweet feeling,” he says.
«We all knew that there was corrupt weightlifting, but I didn’t think it would come out», he emphasizes. But the weightlifter wants to focus on the positive, because even if she doesn’t have the photo at the top of the podium, the story remains: “When someone looks for the weightlifting medals in the Games, Lydia Valentín’s gold medal will always appear.”
“I can sleep peacefully because no one will come to my house to ask me for the medals,” he says before pointing out that at present “things are being done better, although there is room for improvement. “This is not a question of sport, it is a question of values.”
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