-The difference is in the way of marching. Before, María Pérez practiced a kind of military march. And the judges didn't like that. So Daniel Jacinto Garzón, her trainer, has had to reset it.
Chuso García Bragado (53), wise walker, long-lived walker, Olympian every year since Barcelona'92, world champion in 1993, today a World Athletics ambassador who sees everything and analyzes everything, tells me all this.
"Look," he tells me, leaning out of the VIP stands in the Plaza de los Héroes.
And I fixed.
María Pérez (27), European champion five years ago (2018), is small and compact and has determination in manner and tone -we don't know what her gaze says; her sunglasses cover half her face-, and she also has the flow, the ability to glide as she likes the judges, fluid and light even at 4m06s per kilometer, no more military march, no more disqualifications.
The flow allows him to open a gap over his rivals at km 15, a wonderful coincidence, who knows if intentional, the same point at which, the day before, Álvaro Martín had opened an abyss over his pursuers.
And like Álvaro Martín on the eve, nothing stops María Pérez, who is now also the world champion.
Two walking tests, two titles for Spanish walkers, two titles like in Stuttgart'93, the year of Chuso García Bragado (50 km) and Valentí Massana (20 km).
-Yes, there is a future for the march - Raúl Chapado, the president of the Spanish Federation, and now vice president of World Athletics, also tells me, and adds -: our experts are developing the technology that will relaunch the discipline.
And he tells me about the research centers in Barcelona and Granada, in a project led by Valentí Massana (they are all experts in this discipline) and which is now ready to be implemented.
An accelerometer on the hip and another next to the shoe, a range of biomechanical data that will flood the judges with data and end subjectivity in the analysis of the footprint.
Like VAR, Hawkeye and photoelectric cells.
The march, questioned by the highest levels of World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee, looks to the future.
"Let's see," says Daniel Jacinto, Pérez's trainer, "walking is an intercultural discipline. There are even Kenyans and Indians here. We come from walking, it is the most popular discipline in the world, how are you going to end it?
And I take a look at the VIP box in the Plaza de los Héroes.
I honor the president of the Australian Federation. And the Brazilian, the Peruvian who has come to see Kimberly García (fourth this time), the Mexican, the Italian Stefano Mei...
(No sign of British or American, nor does Sir Sebastian Coe, the head of World Athletics, appear.)
We do not count absences. All those present contemplate the fluid acceleration of María Pérez.
The Spaniard is tiny (1.58m) and also has a tiny head, and that is why she manipulates the cap, which now dances and makes her uncomfortable and in the end she throws it at the refreshment point, where her coach calls out to her.
-There have been many attacks, I expected more response from the Chinese, but I noticed that they were panting (Ma was seventh and Yang, 12th), and then I saw myself in front and I haven't looked back anymore -says María Pérez for half an hour more later, with the sticker medal to the game, later they will give you the real gold-. And then, at 15, I said to myself: 'Now'. And when I left, I went from 4m22s per kilometer to 4m05s, and I felt a puncture in my left hamstring, but I wasn't thinking of stopping anymore.
