A year ago, on August 20, 2022, María Pérez was a sea of doubts. In a month, she had been disqualified from the Eugene World Cup and the Munich European Championship for irregular marching. She had to find a solution, a way out of the labyrinth that had as its goal the Heroes’ Square in Budapest. Today, August 20, 2023, the woman from Granada is the 20-kilometre walk world champion. Yes, that specialty that seems annoying and that championship after championship accumulates new successes for Spain.
Like Álvaro Martín on Saturday, María Pérez has offered a display of tactics and power, tracing the march of the Badajoz, that is, hidden in the group until kilometer 15 and from there, flying solo to the finish line. Spain had not won a gold medal for eight years and in two days it has won two world titles thanks to two great walkers. Bearing in mind that in 2015 Miguel Ángel López was gold, you have to go to Seville’99 to find two gold medals and two athletes who won and were not walkers, Abel Antón in the marathon and Niurka Montalvo in long distance.
At the finish line, the Granada woman from Orce celebrated in style that title, which is the best vindication that the Spanish march can offer. And it was also a personal claim. Because the pupil of Jacinto Garzón, her lifelong coach, has suffered a lot in the last year. It is not easy to assimilate that, suddenly, everything you have done in your sports career does not work. After being European champion in 2018 and fourth at the Tokyo Olympics, Pérez began to accumulate disqualifications. First in the Podebrady European Cup. Later, more painful, in the Eugene World Cup. And a month later, out of the European Championship in Munich. Stuck in a loop from which they had to find a way out, María and her coach began to look for solutions while the athlete forgot about the march for four months. She took the opportunity to run and was even able to finish 14th in the San Silvestre Vallecana with 34.08.
But I had to go back. The advice of experts such as Josep Marín, García Bragado, Robert Korzeniowski, Beatriz Pascual… determined the changes that had to be made in María’s style, which no longer took her feet off the ground so much and was a more fluid gait. She had to test herself in competition and boy did she do it. In May she set the world record for the 35km walk, a distance to which she, too, has adapted perfectly.
ready for battle
After a final concentration in height in Font Romeu, María has arrived in Budapest ready for battle. Focused on her work, Pérez has remained hidden in the group of eight marchers in which Kimberly García León set the pace. She had to manage the effort and the humidity and the grenadine has been methodical, cooling her body, changing caps every two turns, looking for the best areas of the circuit to ride. She did not appear until kilometer 15 and when she did, it was to make a definitive change. No one has been able to beat the 27-year-old Granada from Orce, a town of 1,200 inhabitants that has a world champion.
The final meters have been to enjoy. With no one questioning her victory, the Spanish walker has dedicated herself to savoring success and expressing the emotions she accumulated after a very hard year, but where, far from lamenting and sinking, María Pérez and her trainer Jacinto Garzón worked to find solutions. This Sunday, at the World Cup in Budapest, it became clear that she had been found.
«I almost left the march in December»
“The work pays off”, the woman from Granada confirmed in statements to Teledeporte, where she was very grateful to all the people who have helped her in this difficult year, “There are two people in the march to whom we owe a lot, Josep Marín and Beatriz Pascual, who have helped me a lot”, explained a María Pérez who has admitted having had very difficult times.
«I had that nailed thorn, I knew I could be among the best, but from Munich I hardly left. We began to visit Marín, other people, I was about to say goodbye to the march in December but whoever follows it succeeds, the best thing to cover mouths is to continue working, “he said. In the race, Pérez has recognized that «I have been very patient, the desire was overwhelming but I have known how to keep a cool head. Be humble and you will be rewarded, Carrillo advised me. And so it has been.”
Now, it will be necessary to see if she competes in 35 kilometers, because she has revealed that she has ended up in pain. «I knew I had to change because the others were fast, but if I got below 4.10 I could be unreachable, I had a jerk but I held on until the end. I will be at the exit of 35, then we will see, to see what the doctors say, but my discipline is 20, the goal is Paris and I will be there », she celebrated.
Diame sixth and Ebosele eighth; Romo saves the 1,500 from disaster
Fatima Diame and Tessy Ebosele offered a great performance in the final of length. The first was sixth, equaling her best mark, while the second was eighth in her first grand final in the absolute category. The victory went to the Serbian Ivana Vuleta, who with a huge jump of 7.14 meters took her coveted World Cup gold.
Ebosele, at 21, already has a finalist position. Eighth with 6.62 meters, her success was to sneak among the best jumpers on the planet. It is a diamond that Iván Pedroso is in charge of polishing in Guadalajara, after growing up as an athlete in Vitoria, going to Donostia to train with Asier San Sebastián and last year making the decision to go with the Cuban and be part of a group of champions where Ana Peleteiro, Yulimar Rojas or Jordan Díaz are located.
Two places ahead, sixth, finished Fatima Diame, who dreamed of medals thanks to a jump of 6.82 that placed her first third, then fourth and at the moment of truth, sixth after being surpassed in the sixth attempt by the Romanian Alina Rotaru and by the Italian Lapichino. Regardless, Diame equaled her best time and showed that she can fight for the podium by staying just six centimeters from bronze.
The blow for Spanish athletics came in the 1,500 meter semifinals. Only Mario García Romo will be in the final, since Mo Katir, who this year has run in 3.28, and Adel Mechaal were eliminated. The same as in women with Marta Pérez and Esther Guerrero, who made a personal brand.
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