He is barely 142 centimeters tall and weighs 47 kilos. Seen first-hand it might seem like a very small thing, but its presence is capable of illuminating and filling venues as wonderful as the Paris-Bercy pavilion where the artistic gymnastics competition took place at last summer’s Games. Simone Biles returned with a bang to an Olympic event after raising awareness among everyone in Tokyo about the mental problems that an athlete can suffer in high competition. The American recovered from that collapse that trapped her in Japan and three years later she won four medals, a triplet of gold and a silver.
She became the first gymnast to be Olympic champion twice non-consecutively in the individual all-around competition, she won the team final and also the vault final and was silver in the floor exercise. But, above all, she proved to be fully recovered for the front line. “There was a lot at stake for me personally, because I had a lot to prove to myself, but once it was all over, I felt very liberated,” she declared before the premiere of the documentary broadcast on Netflix Simone Biles: Rising . “I feel like you need a lot of people to support you behind a success. “When I stand on a podium I think of all those people,” added the American.
The American returned to the top after her Tokyo blockade and the Frenchman became a mass phenomenon
Beyond the triumphs, she left one of the most beautiful images of the Games when on the podium of the floor final she and her compatriot Jordan Chiles bowed to the winner and rival, the Brazilian Rebeca Andrade, gold in Paris. “She is a queen. I adore her. That’s why we bowed. I’m his number 1 fan. He’s amazing. I can only say good things about them,” argued Biles.
If the gymnast excelled, so did the swimmer Léon Marchand, the true king of La Défense Arena, the pool that was packed every day to vibrate with the Frenchman, a local idol who was proclaimed four-time Olympic champion in Paris and added a bronze in the relay 4×100 styles for your collection. Marchand dominated the 200 and 400 medleys, the 200 butterfly and the 200 breaststroke. His prodigious performance earned praise from the greatest in history, Michael Phelps. “He has nothing to envy of anyone,” Phelps said of Marchand. The Frenchman put himself in the hands of trainer Bob Bowman, the same one who shaped the career of the Baltimore locomotive. And under its mantle Marchand, son and nephew of swimmers, propelled himself. In 2021 he sent an email to Bowman asking him to train him and thus began to build his own legend. “The plan was to have it ready for the appointment, not two weeks before. I told him to concentrate, not obsess. He also learned to manage pressure from the media so that it didn’t take up too much of his time. “He managed to perform much better in the competition than he was doing in training,” said the coach. A perfect tandem that led to a mass phenomenon, especially in France.
“People thank me on the street, but there aren’t many people waiting for me at the pool. After training, of course I can no longer just go to a restaurant or go shopping alone. I have to plan ahead, go with other people, or else I hide under a cap and glasses. In most cases, it is enough,” Marchand reasons about the consequences of his triumphant year.
After the Games he took a break and did not compete again until October. He had earned it.
An illustrious retreat
Rafa Nadal’s goodbye
On the night of Malaga, an autumn Tuesday in the Martín Carpena pavilion, eleven thousand saddened souls contemplated the farewell of Rafael Nadal (38), a decisive spirit in the history of sport. After a year of bickering, conditioned by the range of injuries that have interrupted the last few years of his career, Nadal interpreted that his path had come to an end. Enough: this is how the second leg of the ‘Big Three’ was lost (Novak Djokovic remains, we’ll see for how long), and the new generations of tennis definitely made their way, Sinner, Alcaraz, Rune, perhaps Sebastian Korda… 22 titles of the Grand Slam, fourteen titles at Roland Garros surround the Manacor icon, today a paterfamilias willing to focus on the education of little Rafael (2) and the development of his magnificent academy in Manacor, also a soul wounded by its closure, as it had occurred in uncomfortable circumstances, losing to the Dutch Botic van de Zandschulp and accelerating the elimination of the Spanish team in the Davis Cup quarterfinals. Without Rafael Nadal and without Garbiñe Muguruza (31), winner of two Grand Slam titles, retired months before, in April of this same year, Spanish tennis is diminished, essentially in the hands of Carlos Alcaraz, a phenomenon of the present and the future.
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