Paloma del Río, the voice that has promoted women’s and minority sport on RTVE with her popularity, has been unanimously awarded the 2024 National Television Award this Tuesday. The award, granted by the Ministry of Culture, is endowed with 30,000 euros and coincides with her professional retirement last year. After almost four decades of experience, the pioneering sports journalist ended a career that has stood out not only for the number of Olympic Games to which she has lent her voice. She has also been an advocate for the rights of women and the LGTBI+ community in several of her projects.
The jury for the National Television Award recognised Del Río for her “37-year career, during which she has covered more than 60 World and European Championships, 14 Olympic Games and 4 Mediterranean Games and has received awards such as the Ondas de Televisión Award for best presenter, the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit, the Talent Award from the Television Academy and the Iris Critics’ Award”.
The jury also highlighted that the journalist “has been a pioneering woman in the field of sports journalism, a spokesperson for diversity and a reference for all people who work in sports journalism in Spain. Paloma del Río has contributed, with rigor and honesty, to a more inclusive sport. As a woman, she has given voice to diversity in a masculinized environment and has been able to bring minority sports closer to the general public, combining journalistic rigor, extensive technical knowledge, professionalism, passion and human warmth,” reads the statement from the Ministry of Culture that reports on this award.
Pioneer without wanting it
“Life has put me in places where I have been able to do freely, with impetus and vehemence what I liked most and specialize in sports that not many people wanted and where I have found my living room. And it has allowed me to get to know the world of the Olympics, which is a world apart,” Paloma del Río herself told this newspaper last summer.
In 2021, just before tackling the Tokyo Olympics, she spoke of her status as a pioneer: “I didn’t know I was one. I arrived at the television scholarship in June 1986, they asked me what I wanted to do, I said Sports and I saw the strange face of the man who designed the areas for the scholarship holders. There were Mari Carmen Izquierdo, Olga Viza, María Escario, María Antonia Martínez, Elena Sánchez… It seemed very normal to me that there were women with that vocation. But I quickly realized that my veteran colleagues looked at us as intruders,” she recalled then. “It is true that sports journalism is very masculine, traditionally made and consumed by men. All I did was try to make people understand what they were seeing and explain it to them in simple language,” she said.
The National Television Award recognized the program in its last edition Weekly report and adds Paloma del Río to a long list of award winners, including Karlos Arguiñano, Victoria Prego, Andreu Buenafuente and Concha García Campoy, among others. The jury for this edition was chaired by Carmen Páez Soria, Undersecretary of Culture, and Juan Melgar Jaquotot, Director of the Centre for the Coordination of Cultural Industries, acted as vice-president.
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