Neither the knee injuries, which have harmed her in recent years, nor the age, nor the habit of winning, put a stop to a champion of grazing like Carolina Marín from Huelva, who this Sunday celebrated her seventh European champion title, Eighth were the European Games last summer, defeating Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour in the grand final held on German soil. Huge moral reward for an irreducible player who hopes to get on the podium at the next Olympic Games in Paris, her great challenge.
Not even the greatest of optimists could dream of something similar when Carolina Marín won the European badminton tournament in Kazan (Russia) in 2014. It was unthinkable then that that girl from Huelva, now 30 years old, could revolutionize this sport not only in Europe but at a global level, where Asian players were invincible.
That was the first Spanish medal in a European competition in this sport and it demolished a wall built until then by the powerful Danes in the Old Continent. But a decade later, a prodigious decade for the Andalusian, Carolina is still there. Since that Kazan edition, only she has risen to the top of the continental podium, from which it seems like an impossible mission to unseat her. Its dominance is hegemonic, absolute, almost a dictatorship in the sport of pen.
This Sunday, on the Saarbrücken stage (Germany), Marín has once again been crowned European champion, and it is already seven times in a row or eight, depending on which specialist compiles the statistics and whether or not the European Games are counted. The latest victim of her has been the British Kirsty Gilmour, who lost in two sets by 21-11 and 21-18 against the push of the Spanish.
With an insulting dominance in Europe, something like the backyard of her house for a player who has won her last tournaments consecutively in England, Switzerland and now in the European Championship in Germany, Carolina presents the Olympic candidacy with all her courage. The sensations could not be better one hundred days before the big Parisian event.
When you see her perform on the court, it is not risky to say that Carolina has recovered her essence and looks like that tireless and courageous player who did everything before her two very serious knee injuries, first on the right (2019). and two years later on the left. And you had to go back to 2018 to find in her record three titles in a row, then the China World Cup, the Japan Open and the Changzhou China Open.
Before going out on the track, Marín knew that the statistics were on his side. since he had won 11 of his 14 matches with Gilmour. The first round was dominated at will by the Huelva player, superior in all facets of the game. His was the initiative, the pace of the game and the winning points. She was very fast on her legs, she did everything and forced Gilmour's mistakes again and again, the 26th in the world but unable to match the Spanish's intensity.
After the unappealable 21-11, the panorama changed in the second and ultimately final set. It was much more balanced because the Spanish slowed down the pace somewhat, played more defensively and allowed the British to make fewer mistakes and not give away as many points. Using attacks with crossed shots, Gilmour sought to damage the Spanish. A 3-0 run in the final stretch even tied the contest at 18 in that second round, but then the Olympic champion showed who she is.
With more experience and quality, he maintained faith, concentration and pulse to respond with another 3-0 run to win this set 21-18 and win the final and the celebrated title. The fact is that after this victory Carolina now has 9,200 points in her battle to close the gap with the Japanese Akane Yamaguchi. An important fight because she determines whether or not to be seeded in the Olympic event.
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