The referee Yasmina Alcaraz, on maternity leave

On Friday, hours before attending the journalist, Yasmina Alcaraz left home very early with Samba, her dog, a half-breed with Gascon blood adopted in a shelter.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
31 March 2023 Friday 21:59
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The referee Yasmina Alcaraz, on maternity leave

On Friday, hours before attending the journalist, Yasmina Alcaraz left home very early with Samba, her dog, a half-breed with Gascon blood adopted in a shelter. They ran five kilometers around Borrassà, in the Alt Empordà. Yasmina, who lives in this town, but was born in Figueres and spent her second childhood in neighboring Castelló d'Empúries, feels in this region of Girona at the center of the world.

Yes, five kilometers at an easy pace for an elite athlete who is almost eight months pregnant. This woman, who just turned 34, has been a swimmer and a basketball player. She was also a dancer from the ages of 2 to 18 (those who doubt the physical demands of dance should check out the calves of ballerinas and male dancers). But she is, above all, the fourth referee at the top of the ACB.

Pilar Landeira, Anna Cardús and Esperanza Mendoza arrived before her. The first two have already retired and never coincided in the same season. Therefore, it is the first time that in the highest men's competition in Spanish basketball there are two collegiates, Esperanza and Yasmina, who also direct international matches. And it is also the first time that a referee requests maternity leave.

Max will be born in May and will come into the world with sport inscribed in his DNA, like his parents, and especially his mother, who is the sister and daughter of basketball players and referees. “I remember a day when the three of us met on a court: my father, Antonio, coached CB Escolàpies de Figueres, my first team; my sister, Noelia, 22 months older than me and who would have been 15 years old at the time, whistled; and I played."

She was an intense athlete. She stole a lot of balls and ran a lot, which is the same as saying that she made a lot of fouls. That day her sister whistled her personal fifth and she went to the bench crying, very angry. Back home, her father (and her coach) told her that they could have whistled two or three more fouls and that sport only contains one truth and that truth, sacrifice, is useless if you don't know it. They accept their own mistakes. She never forgot the lesson.

Her sister has given up competition, but not physical activity, and earns a living as a dance teacher. Her 58-year-old father had to resign from the bench as he rose through the ranks in refereeing and today he continues to whistle in the Copa Catalunya, the highest Catalan category. The whole family loves this sport, which is summed up in a scene: a player commits a foul and raises his hand, assuming his mistake.

He was refereeing until the fifth month of pregnancy. His imminent motherhood had already been revealed, although he achieved special notoriety this week. He continues training (“with another intensity and under strict controls”) and hopes to return in September. He naturally and joyfully assumes the pregnancy, like the ACB, which has given him all the facilities. “I am not sick, it is a physiological, desired fact. And soon it will stop being news.

It will cease to be when reaching traditionally male positions is not as rare as it is now. "It's hard for me to use the word pioneer and be the focus of the news, but I gladly accept it to open the way for those who come after me." She lives from arbitration, she is a professional and the kilometers she has traveled so far to whistle from one city to another, from one country to another would allow her to go around the world several times.

She is still the girl who left a game crying, expelled by her sister. The same one that was saddened by the incivility of some fans in the semifinal of the women's Eurocup that whistled in July 2022 and that faced the Turkish CBK Mersin and the Italians from Reyer Venezia (also whistled the final). And the same one that she rediscovered with the teachings of her father when other fans embarrassed and expelled the vandals.

He began refereeing at the age of 14. The happiest day of his life will be when Max is born. The second or one of the seconds was the afternoon when she was traveling on the AVE and they phoned her to tell her that he had been promoted to the highest category. She cried with happiness and received endless congratulations. Players, former players, managers, former managers, referees, former referees... But among all those people there was one fiercely proud. Her father.