Winds of storm envelop the athletic march, and in the chaos the Spanish specialists multiply and grow, and find peace in Podebrady, a spa town in Eastern Europe, a magnificent refuge from everything that is falling.
The walkers live in a sea of doubts, disconcerted by the disappearance of the 50 km test (Chuso García Bragado has been an Olympian in that discipline eight times), and restless to find out that the 35 km are also in danger: now They will not be held at the 2024 Paris Games, they are replaced by the mixed marathon relay (42,195 km), a project that we will see where it goes, but that very few like.
On the eve of the European March, the great specialists position themselves on social networks.
Dozens of them gather behind a banner.
Marc Tur, Diego García Carrera, Raquel González, Miguel Ángel López, Álvaro Martín or María Pérez pose and protest. They remember that the march has been an Olympic march since 1908. They hope to have recomposed for Los Angeles 2028. Robert Korzeniowski and Chuso García Bragado, legends of the discipline, second the protest, each one at one end of the banner.
The next day, this same Sunday, Álvaro Martín and María Pérez appear on the scene and take over the stage, monopolizing the men's and women's 35 km titles, a world record included in the case of María Pérez.
María Pérez (27), European champion in Berlin 2018, fourth in the Tokyo 2020 Games, has gone to shake off the demons of 2022, that damn summer, disqualified in the World Cups in Oregon and also in the Europeans in Munich.
What a punch on the table, his.
No demons, no doubts, María Pérez has signed 2h37m15s, marching at 4m26s per km, 29 seconds faster than the record of the Peruvian Kimberly García, surprising irruption in Oregon, where she had taken over the women's march: then, gold in 20 and also in 35.
"I am happy with the world record, which I did not expect, but in the last two laps we have fought it, we have fought it, and technically the improvement is noticeable," María Pérez, small and compact, from Granada from Orce, would later confess. accentuated accent, short hair, woman with character.
(In modern World Athletics, this is the first world record for a Spanish athlete.)
The partials time their words.
María Pérez signs 21m53 in the last 5 km (she starts at 4m22s per kilometer), a hug that the distance of her closest rivals, precisely two other Spaniards, Raquel González and Cristina Montesinos, who are silver and bronze and among all (and among they are also Paula Juárez, ninth), they also help Spain to team gold.
Thus, María Pérez, heir to the great marchers of our country, the Llopart, Marín, Mari Cruz Díaz, Massana, Plaza, Vasco and, in recent years, Miguel Ángel López, Raquel González and Álvaro Martín, recomposes herself.
He pulls himself together, because life was getting complicated. The nonsense of last summer (two disqualifications in two major championships) had made her doubt herself.
"I have always tried to have the technique and style of the Spanish march. That now I don't like it... well, well," he said then, head down after his elimination in Munich, before understanding that, to continue standing, he had to modify his technique.
More fluid, less robotic, she had reappeared this February to improve herself in four minutes in Cieza (2h41m38s), already surpassing her own European record and warning that the best was yet to come.
The World Cups in Budapest are on the horizon, already in summer, she says that María Pérez has pending after the squeeze from Oregon, she says that she also plans to settle Álvaro Martín (29), European champion in 2018, fourth in the Tokyo Games 2020, also stuck in Oregon and redone this Sunday, in Podebrady, flying solo towards his gold and that of the men's team, with Miguel Ángel López in bronze and Marc Tur, eighth.
