With less than four months until the Olympic Games, the Spanish delegation that will travel to Paris aims to be one of the largest in history - with the exception of Barcelona'92 (430 athletes) -. The bulk of the expedition will be provided by team sports (141 of the 325 athletes in Tokyo), which are usually a guarantee of success, as happened in the 2021 harvest with three medals - silver in women's water polo and men's soccer, and the bronze of Hispanics in handball.
Precisely, Jordi Ribera's players were the last to qualify, the 13th selection. There are only two left for the plenary session: men's basketball and women's handball. If they qualify for their pre-Olympic Games, Spain could surpass the 325 athletes in 29 sports that it brought to Tokyo.
Those who will not be in Paris in team sports are volleyball and 7-a-side rugby, which failed to qualify.
For the first time in history, both Spanish soccer teams will be in the Olympic Games, as Montse Tomé's players qualified when they reached the final of the Nations League (which they won). The women's team, number one in the FIFA ranking and current world champion, will be one of the big favorites for the medal.
Label similar to the one that Santi Denia's U-21 will have with the absence of Brazil in Paris, for the first time without Games in 20 years, which leaves the role of favorites to Javier Mascherano's Argentina, Thierry Henry's France and the young people of the red, current European sub-21 runners-up and Olympic silver in Tokyo. It was at Euro 2023, upon reaching the semi-finals, when those from Denia got the ticket. In Paris they will seek the first gold since 1992.
The draw for the two competition teams (from July 24 to August 10) will be tomorrow at the Saint-Denis stadium in Paris.
They do; They, not yet... The presence of Spanish basketball in Paris in its entirety is uncertain, since it depends on the Pre-Olympic tournament that Sergio Scariolo's team will play less than a month before the Games. The selection will be played in Valencia, from July 2 to 7, a place with Angola and Lebanon (in the first instance), and with the two best of the Finland-Poland-Bahamas trio. It will not be easy: Spain cannot fail in the four games (the two in its group, and the semifinal and the final) to avoid being left out of the Games for the first time since Montreal 1976.
The women's team will be in the Games for the sixth time, since it debuted in Barcelona'92. They qualified for Paris in the Olympic Qualifiers in February after losing to Japan and beating Canada and Hungary. Those of Miguel Méndez, sixth in Tokyo'20, are not among the medal favorites.
Another of the places not awarded is that of women's handball. The warriors, a nickname they patented with the double world and Olympic bronze in 2011-12, face their last option of traveling to Paris in the pre-Olympic tournament that they will play in Torrevieja from April 11 to 14 against the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Argentina. There are two places at stake. Ambros Martín's team will not have it easy at all, since in the 2023 World Cup last December they achieved a discreet 13th place, after falling, precisely, to their two European rivals, who left them out of the quarterfinals. In Torrevieja, the warriors will seek their fourth consecutive qualification for the Games (since London 2012) and the sixth in their history.
Their Hispanic colleagues, classified on Sunday in the Granollers Pre-Olympic with three wins, will seek in Paris the only gold they lack in major tournaments, after four Olympic bronzes. A very tough draw awaits them, which will be drawn on April 16.
The two water polo teams, two of the main assets to qualify for a medal, were the ones that got up the earliest to secure a ticket to Paris, without having to go through the Pre-Olympics.
Miki Oca's players qualified by being finalists in the Fukuoka 2023 World Cup last July (a final they lost to the Netherlands). And David Martín's water polo players earned their ticket to Paris thanks to the European gold – the first in their history – that they won in January against Croatia (11-10) in Zagreb.
The two teams already know their paths to medals. Oca's aquatic warriors (Olympic silver in London'12 and Tokyo'20) will face France, Greece, Italy and the USA in a terrifying group (4 of the 5 qualify for the quarterfinals, and 1 cross. º-4th and 2nd-3rd). David Martín's men (who have not won a medal since gold in Atlanta '96) will face Australia, Serbia, France, Hungary and Japan.
Hockey is one of the classics of Spanish sport that does not usually fail the Olympic Games. The two teams got their place in Paris at the same time, in the January Pre-Olympic tournament held in Valencia.
The men's team, which has not missed the Olympic event since Melbourne '56, managed to qualify by being second in the Pre-Olympic, after beating Ireland in the semifinal and losing the final with Belgium. In the Games they achieved four medals, the last one, silver in Pekí08. In Tokyo they were eighth.
For their part, the redsticks coached by Carlos García Cuenca sealed the pass by beating Ireland in the semifinals. His only Olympic medal was the gold in Barcelona'92. In Tokyo they were seventh.
The good performance of the artistic swimming team at the recent World Cup in Doha in February earned qualification for the Games for the free routine team and the duo. The team got its ticket by being third in the points ranking after combining the three routines (acrobatics, technique – it was silver – and free), only surpassed by China and the United States, while the duo formed by Iris Tió and Alisa Ozoghina took bronze in the technical routine. That same couple had been 10th in Tokyo and the team was 7th.
The Spanish dressage team won one of the three Olympic places at the European Championships in Riesenbeck in September. The team is made up of Severo Jurado, Alejandro Sánchez del Barco, José Daniel Martín Docks and Juan Antonio Jiménez Cobo.
The rhythmic gymnastics teams (5 athletes, who must be chosen by the Federation), artistic gymnastics (5 men) and equestrian jumping teams have also achieved a place.
