Lydia Valentín, Spanish sports legend, announced this Thursday her retirement from professional weightlifting at the age of 38 after failing to recover from a chronic hip injury that left her out of the last Weightlifting World Cup. The weightlifter from Bercia confirmed the news in a massive event held at the headquarters of the Spanish Olympic Committee, surrounded by her family and with the smile on her face that has always characterized her during her long and brilliant career.
«It is a very happy day for me. My heart is full of mixed emotions. The time has come to write a new chapter in my life. “I announce my farewell to elite sport, but I want it to be a day of celebration of each and every one of my successes,” she said excitedly as her speech began.
Lydia’s dream was to retire in style at the next Olympic Games in Paris, but this chronic hip injury has forced her to change her roadmap. «At some point we have to close. I am 38 years old and athletes are not eternal. There has not been a moment of weakness. “I love everything I have experienced,” she added. An injury that affected both her joint, cartilage and hip bone and that already forced her to retire prematurely from the Tokyo Olympic Games held in 2021.
«This sport has taken a lot from me, but it has given me everything. I am leaving happy, full and very grateful, I have achieved much more than I imagined,” the Bercian concluded in her emotional speech, but not before hearing the words of praise from Constantino Iglesias, president of the Spanish Weightlifting Federation: “What What can we do to find another Lydia? I’m sorry to say nothing. There won’t be another one like it. She has been a model athlete. What she has achieved has been through effort, determination and work,” she acknowledged.
Emblematic figure of Spanish sport, Lydia Valentín closes an enviable sporting career. She is a triple Olympic medalist – gold medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games -, twice world champion and four-time European champion, in addition to winning 15 consecutive Spanish championships – from 2004 to 2018 -. A career full of awards for the woman who raised the level of Spain in weightlifting to absolutely unimaginable levels, being chosen twice as the best world weightlifter of the year in 2017 and 2018. In addition, the weightlifter from Bercia will have the privilege of belonging to the select group of Spanish athletes who have completed the collection of Olympic medals together with Mireia Belmonte, Saúl Craviotto and Maialen Chourraut.
A precocious talent
Lydia Valentín began her career at the age of 11 when her coach Isaac Álvarez saw her as a potential Olympic champion, and he was not wrong. At just 15 years old, she was already a double Spanish children’s champion and the Weightlifting Federation offered her a move to the Joaquín Blume Residence for elite Spanish athletes, where she trained very hard to become one of the best weightlifters in the world.
He quickly made his way in a sport that is as tough as it is minority, in which the shadow of doping has always been very powerful. In 2008, the year Lydia Valentín competed in her first Olympic Games, Spain only had 301 women with a weightlifting license. A decade later, in 2019, the barrier of 1,000 federated women was surpassed for the first time.
Lydia Valentín won three medals in her four participations in the Olympic Games. She won silver in Beijing 2008, gold in London 2012 and bronze in Rio 2016. All in the 75 kilo category, where she achieved the greatest successes of her career. However, she only received one on the podium, that of Rio de Janeiro. She won the other two in the laboratories after the disqualifications of her rivals for the use of doping substances.
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