In sport, only a few manage to achieve their dreams and those who do share something in common: they are so strong that they not only break records, they also break conventions, even more so if you are a woman and want to give in to your passion in the first half of the year. last century, as was the case of Lilí Álvarez, a Spanish athlete who shook all the patriarchal norms of the society of her time. Teresa Perales and Gisela Pulido take over and aim even higher, with imagination always hand in hand. Because being part of the average is not their story.
If we talk about breaking barriers, one name shines with a special light: Teresa Perales. As she explains, there are many people who reduce their career to a number – impressive, of course -: “People give a lot of importance to the 28 Olympic medals. OO., because I have played many games (7) or because I have played for many years,” he shares. But anyone who knows Teresa knows that her dreams are not reduced to her records. That is just part of a greater learning.
Teresa Perales, one of the protagonists of ‘Imaginators’, is the most successful athlete in the Paralympic Games with 28 medals, surpassing Michael Phelps
“Some will think that I am crazy for thinking about arriving in Los Angeles at 52 years old and taking home a medal. It could be… But I don’t see it as a fantasy but as a dream. One that life has shown me could seem impossible and on the contrary became a reality,” explains the athlete, recognized with the Princess of Asturias Award for Sports. And history, also that of sport, is full of geniuses who have been called crazy.
When I was left in a wheelchair at the age of 19, it was a big deal, but soon I transformed it, thanks to sport, into one of the best opportunities of my life.”
In this new cycle that Perales opens and that will conclude in Los Angeles, there are new challenges that must be overcome. One more, and there are not a few, since he lost mobility from his waist to his feet due to neuropathy. “When I was left in a wheelchair at the age of 19, it was a big deal, but soon I transformed it, thanks to sport, into one of the best opportunities of my life,” he shares. Today life once again puts your ability to overcome to the test.
Feel the disability again
For two years he has stopped moving his arm. “It doesn’t work for me to swim,” he describes. “It has been very difficult because I had stopped feeling like I had a disability. And now yes and much more severe, but this is a philosophy of life. Instead of dwelling on the bad things that happen to you, you should see what you can still do and make it excellent,” says Perales, our most successful athlete in the Paralympic Games.
“Instead of dwelling on the bad things that happen to you, you should see what you can still do and make it excellent,” says Teresa Perales, who carries optimism as her flag.
Teresa moves like a fish in water. At least, that is the dream she pursues and that, despite having three-quarters of her body that does not work – and the resistance that this entails in the water – has led her to conquer dreams that seemed unattainable. As Alice Walker said, “Imagine what you can become and be what you imagine.” And there is Perales, breaking barriers and giving the world a new level of equality thanks to his successes and, above all, his determination.
A similar engine was the one that led Lilí Álvarez to the top in women’s sports. Or, at least, to a place that was not yet reserved for them, because Álvarez not only stood out on the tennis courts but also dared to challenge the norms established for women of her time. “Life has not been very fair to her. A woman who was a pioneer, not only in tennis, but in many sports, and in which she was also very good,” explains Teresa.
Lilí Álvarez was not only a pioneer in tennis, but in many other sports: skater, racing driver, skier or horse rider.
one in a million
Skater, racing driver, skier, horse rider. There was no sport – or goal – that could resist him. She was the first Spanish woman in the Olympic Games (1924) as a tennis player and one of the first women to publish sports chronicles in the press. Neither the first was easy, nor the second. But Lilí was there, shaking the patriarchal norms of the society of her time. He did it with sport and with words, using literature and journalism to fight for equality.
The first day I got into the water it was all boys. There were no girls or women. Since we were young, all those female athletes who are now great role models have broken those barriers.”
Lilí is a reference of nonconformity and courage. “She was the first woman who was criticized for wearing a skirt to play at Wimbledon,” Perales continues. “I imagine people saying how dare he. Yes, I imagine it. With that racket, coming out of the tunnel and with everyone’s gaze on her, not because she is perhaps the best tennis player in the world, but because she is wearing a short pants,” laments Teresa, who knows well the feeling of being watched with disbelief.
Lilí Álvarez became the first tennis player in history to wear a skirt
Lilí broke barriers in a man’s world in which her role was not written to be a protagonist, but she took the reins and wrote her own. A similar feeling ran through Gisela Pulido when she entered the water for the first time and looked around. “The first day I got into the water it was all boys. There were no girls or women. Since we were young, all those women athletes who are now great references have broken those barriers,” recalls the kitesurfer.
Imagination with the wind in favor
“There is a change and we are not going to go back,” adds without hesitation who has already won 10 world titles. freestyle kitesurfingwhich has made her – at 30 years old – the best in history. To get where he has arrived, Pulido has used two allies: the wind, as it could not be otherwise, and the imagination: “I remember seeing the magazines of kite and surfing of the time, seeing the world champions and saying: oysters, I want to be like them.”
Gisela Pulido was proclaimed kitesurfing world champion for the first time when she was only 10 years old, becoming the youngest in history
Yes, Gisela imagined and imagines. He is clear that wherever he goes with his board, so do his dreams and ambitions. High, very high, although the fall is lurking. “You have to have that little touch of fantasy and imagine things in your head for them to happen,” explains the pioneer in the implementation of the kitesurfing in Spain. Born in Barcelona, where she grew up until she was 10 years old, she landed in Tarifa to fully dedicate herself to her great passion.
“Tarifa is a very special place. It is where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean and you have Africa right in front of you. There is a lot of energy,” she shares, without failing to describe the element that has propelled her, literally and metaphorically, to the top. “The wind does not stop and has a very strong intensity. My life revolves around the wind. I always go in search of the wind,” he admits, not without admitting that he would also like to “press a button” and decide when that wind has to stop.
Gisela landed at the age of 10 in Tarifa, a place where the wind is always present, to be able to dedicate herself to kitesurfing: “My life revolves around the wind”
This element, increased even more by the immensity of the ocean that surrounds it, is also its place of balance. “The beach, the sea, the wind. They make me feel beautiful things but also fear. Nature reminds us that we are nothing, that we are a little dot,” Gisela values. In the end, nothing is as important as walking your own path, leaving behind conventions and, above all, the lack of imagination, as Lilí Álvarez did in the first half of the last century.
Nor is victory synonymous with success, which happens through other flows in which both Pulido and Perales have learned to swim against the current. “Many years ago I considered that not winning a medal would never be a failure. We can only choose where we want our future to go and find the formula so that our future is the way we want it to be,” Teresa concludes.
‘Imaginers’
A docuseries from La Vanguardia with the participation of Movistar Plus+
Lilí Álvarez, Teresa Perales and Gisela Pulido are the protagonists of ‘Swimming in the wind, flying in the water’, the chapter of Imagineers that praises women’s sports.
A documentary series to learn that, with imagination, there are no barriers or limits, and even less so in sport. Available on Movistar Plus+ and La Vanguardia, in this chapter we discover the story of Lilí Álvarez, the first woman to participate as a tennis player in an Olympic Games. OO., although there was no discipline that could resist him, nor the sports chronicle. Imagining reaching the top is just the beginning of three unique sports races that take place with the wind and the sea in your favor.
YOU CAN SEE ALL THE CHAPTERS OF ‘IMAGINATORS’ HERE
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