Going to meet Montse Mechó expecting to find an elderly woman is a completely wrong prejudice, even if the appointment is with a 90-year-old woman. She welcomes us with overwhelming energy in her house, in the center of Barcelona, her bright refuge - on the seventh floor - full of memories, photos and trophies from dozens of sports victories. Clad in a bright orange fleece, sweatpants and sneakers, she exudes the vitality that the sports she has always practiced have given her, from swimming to skydiving, skiing and windsurfing.
Mechó was born more than 90 years ago in the Barcelona neighborhood of Gracia, and very soon, at seven, her mother, a pianist passionate about music and a student of the maestro Joan Magriñà, enrolled her in ballet. “There I already learned to position my body well and I learned about the compositions of Bach, Chopin, Beethoven… For me, music is very important and in heaven, when I jumped with a parachute, I also did a ballet,” she says. While speaking, she shows us some extraordinary images of her jumps in which she appears doing pirouettes, full of joy, with the sky as a backdrop and diverse backgrounds: deserts, mountains, cities... “I skydived 936 times, I did it until I was 85 years old. I was Spanish free-style champion. I have jumped in Turkey over the ruins of Ephesus, over the Arizona desert, I have jumped from hot air balloons…” she reviews. The photos give an idea of those magical moments.
Those parachute jumps were, for her, for more than 35 years, a great injection of life and vigor. She competed internationally and competed in the first World Air Games in 1997. “When I jumped for the first time in Empuriabrava, seeing the sea from the air, I thought: “I could die now.” But no, I didn't die, the parachute opened and I went down, happy. They told me that she had done great, and that they could see me laughing from the plane. I have a reputation for jumping laughing, because in heaven I am happy,” she says.
In heaven and also on earth, in her house, on the street... She looks full, radiant. “I am happy because everything that life has given me I carry within me. God has given me everything. I have fulfilled all my life dreams, I have nothing left to live,” says Mechó, satisfied.
It was not common, in the early 80s, for a woman of almost 50 years to go skydiving. She started practicing when she got divorced, at the same time that she also started windsurfing at the school that her son Eduard had recently opened on the Costa Brava. But the parachute and the windsurf board came thanks to a sporting spirit and nature that Mechó has always carried within him.
Since she was little she has been a member of the Barcelona Swimming Club, where she is an institution and where she trained diving, breaststroke and synchronized swimming. In the club, Montse is an institution. “What a woman! How brave! “What strength,” another member tells us, when Montse prepares to jump into the water.
The pool - preferably salt water - is his habitat, and he demonstrates it when he dives headfirst and begins to move around, swimming, doing pirouettes, and immersing himself incessantly. “I went to the World Swimming Championships in Rio de Janeiro and came thirteenth, without training, in breaststroke,” she explains. And given her aquatic grace, in the fifties she was also asked to participate in the Spanish trampoline jumping championships, because there were no women to compete. “I was always into trampolines, and I started training with Paquita Clos. We performed in Madrid, at the Casa de Campo pool and I was champion, in 1951.”
Air, water, boards on the waves, and also snow: Mechó, like her son, has been a great skier and ski jumper, although such sporting versatility seems impossible. And the latest movement that she has incorporated into her daily routine is Nordic walking, which she was introduced to after volunteering at OAFI, the Osteoarthritis Foundation International. “When they taught me, they told me that she had picked it up very quickly. “But if I go down at 200 per hour in a parachute, how can I not pick up walking with sticks quickly!” She laughs.
Now those marching sticks are like appendages on her arms and they accompany her wherever she goes, gracefully marking the step, whether in the direction of the supermarket, to a date with a friend for lunch or a snack, or in the direction of the pool, in Barceloneta. . It's hard for us to keep up with her when we move with her down the street, but Montse doesn't even think about counting the steps she takes every day, something that others obsess over, at her age. "So that? The point is to move.” In addition to walking and swimming, once a week she also does tai-chi.
We can't miss the opportunity to ask this incredible woman for her health secrets, beyond sports. What is the secret to staying like this? She confesses that she goes to sleep late, watching movies and documentaries. “That's why I don't get up early, I get up around 9. I sleep well, although I wake up several times,” she explains. “I have toast with butter and bitter orange marmalade for breakfast, which I love, and a coffee.” Although she is 90 years old, she is still at the forefront with a thousand and one activities. “I have been selling cleaning products at home for 55 years – she prefers not to talk about the brand – and I continue to do so, to have a small income.” Some modest sums that allow him to expand her pension a little, “which is just over 400 euros,” she laments.
Whenever she can, Montse goes swimming. “Club Natació Barcelona and the saltwater pool have saved me,” she says. “It is not necessary to swim 1,000 meters without stopping like some do. That bores me, I maybe do two or three swimming pools, but I exercise in the water, I move, I do a little breaststroke, a little backstroke… I cure everything with swimming.” In 2023 she won the gold medal of Catalonia in her category (85 to 90 years old).
In addition to volunteering, Mechó has a solid network of contacts, he does not lack the social relationships that so many specialists and researchers point out as a key factor in healthy aging. “I have many friends in the club and I often meet someone to eat in a restaurant, we go to the Mercat del Ninot to a fish bar… They know me everywhere!” Fish, precisely, is one of the bases of his diet, along with vegetables, fruits and legumes. “I've never been much of a carnivore. I eat meat only occasionally. I always say I would be a vegetarian… if it weren't for Serrano ham! ”He jokes.
He prefers sports and going out, rather than the quiet of being at home. But in the pandemic, she explains, reading was a great refuge. “I was sunbathing on my little balcony and started reading with Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens. I couldn't stop: the creation of the world, the stars, history...How wonderful!" She was also captivated by Don Quixote, a constant recommendation from her father who caught her. “I enjoyed it.”
Montse is not a friend of medication at all. “I only take a blood pressure pill. The doctor always tells me that I am fine, although they have to regulate my blood pressure,” she says. Although she is an extremely strong woman, she has had difficult health moments in her life. A few months before getting married she almost died from an attack of gallstones (stones in the gallbladder). “I was hospitalized for many weeks, but they operated on me – I spent five hours in the operating room – and I was able to save myself.”
And in 90 years of life there have been hard moments. Among them, perhaps the worst was the death of her son Eduard, an athlete like her, while doing underwater practice. “I had skied with him, I had windsurfed with him and I had skydived with him. He was a great skier.” They had a great mother-son connection, but Montse overcame the enormous shock with the support of Eduard's friends and everyone around her. “They paid him a great tribute, and seeing how they loved him helped me.” She also misses her “soul friend” Else Herbolzheimer, a swimmer like her “who died of cancer,” she expresses sadly.
But satisfaction with everything accomplished in life helps him explain to us what he wants his end to be like. “I have donated my body to science, I don't want anyone to see me, for the doctors to take me, and for mine to toast me with a glass of cava, because I will be in heaven seeing them. It is my wish and I know it will come true. God and the Virgin of Montserrat grant me everything,” he concludes, with tears in his eyes.
