Hernan Sartori
08/10/2021 5:01 AM
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 08/10/2021 5:01 AM
"Marcos, what are you planning to do?"
.
The
Huevo
Acuña didn't understand anything.
He had climbed on the wall that was only 30 meters from his grandmother's house to spy on Don Bosco's training.
He had left the Zapala club where he was a figure in the Inferiores to go to play neighborhood tournaments, but he wanted to see his former teammates in action.
"
And, Marcos? What do you intend to do?
Gabriel Rouret, the coach, insisted.
Which side of the wall do you think you are on?
Are you going to keep wasting your time or are you going to jump to this side with those who will always support you and will never leave you alone?
”. It was a domino effect: the
Egg
returned to the club, Rouret was the godfather of his eldest daughter and with two other friends they paid him the first months of rent in Buenos Aires before the left-hander arrived at Ferro's pension. Another club with social roots.
The rest is known history.
Bruno Lima
has just become an Olympic medalist. He will have to wait a few hours to hang the bronze on the podium and, with the final consummated between France and Russia, try to process that he was
the top scorer of the volleyball tournament
in Tokyo 2020, with 138 points, two and three more than the French
Earvin Ngapeth
(MVP) and
Jean Patry
, eight more than Russian
Maxim Mikhaylov
and thirteen more than
Facundo Conte
. He takes a deep breath and says: “I started at Obras de San Juan when I was 6 years old. My life is volleyball. Almost all my friends are from the club.
The clubs are very important for the kids to start playing and help to get you out of the bad board
”.
Carlos Retegui overflows with joy after his
third consecutive Olympic medal
as coach of a national field hockey team: silver with the Lionesses in London 2012 and Tokyo 2020, and gold with the Lions in Rio de Janeiro 2016. For the ball and a speech that you have already heard him say.
But saying it at that moment is vital.
" It
is very important to
be politically active sports. It
is important that sport is a priority in our country.
I put trumpeted infrastructure for the sport that is not only hockey he insists. Because it
has to do with healthy living.
Take out a kid from the street and turning it into sports is worth gold, more than winning a medal
in the Olympic Games ”.
Argentina, bronze in men's volleyball at Tokyo 2020 AP Photo
If Tokyo 2020 rekindled a lesson of those that time and daily madness sadly put aside, it is that
the seed of a high-performance athlete is spreading in the clubs
. Neighborhood, town, city, with or without football, large, medium or small, with rough social quota to pay or in the style of the Promotion Society or cooperative.
Now, if even today it is difficult to understand that home and school are interrelated in the formation of girls and boys, because it is difficult to get rid of the idea of the school as a mere factory of bodies and minds towards a job market, it is logical make it difficult to understand the importance of clubs.
And if, on top of that, they are mistreated with high fees and a lack of debt moratorium plans, while an elitist discourse believes that investing in them is just "doing politics", even worse.
Every gesture is political. And investing in clubs is to educate, transmit values and avoid major problems in youth.
It is impossible to analyze any of the 188 Argentine athletes classified to the Olympic Games without thinking about the formation of the clubs, with coaches who do not give up in teaching and directive committees that join the mango for the love of colors.
Jumping is competition in leagues or tournament circuits, depending on the sport.
León Najnudel
did not dream of it: he saw what was needed for the development of basketball, he got together with more passionate people, he faced criticism and thus the National League was born.
"Hopefully this bronze will serve because volleyball is about to disappear,"
Sebastian Solé
warned
about the present of his sport, hoping that they will listen to him.
Paula Pareto, before her debut in Tokyo 2020 Photo EFE
Not to mention the need to
strengthen female competition
in Argentina. The same country where almost 30 years ago Mirta Méndez was asked why she let her daughter practice judo if it was "a man's sport" and she sent them to fry churros because Paula, the girl, had a
wonderful time playing without knowing that I did judo
. And today, at a minimum, there is gender equality in the little schools of that sport because Paula Pareto produced the final earthquake on that path that
Carolina Mariani
and
Daniela Krukower
had previously opened
.
Home.
The school.
The club.
The sacred triad for a man and a woman to embrace sport.
Then the local competition will come.
And understand that here there is a roof and that inevitably it
will be necessary to emigrate and suffer uprooting
to follow the dream of being a professional.
If you want to be, of course, because in Argentina there is a place for amateurism.
Now, those who make a living from their sport with a work contract maintain that amateur spirit.
If not, it is not understood how they face adversity when they wear the blue and white.
The sport of speaking without knowing and attacking
Analyzing the performance of the Argentine delegation watching the medal table with a beer in hand, while zapping between the fashion series and the Tik Tok, is astonishingly reductive. It was mature that in this era of easy tweeting, guaranteed anonymity and constant criticism to gain followers, there would be a winner:
the sport of speaking without knowing
. A discipline based, minimally, on supine ignorance and callous arrogance; and maximum, in the absolute lack of empathy and fierce aggression to damage self-esteem.
No, you cannot say anything.
You cannot tell an athlete that he "went for a walk in Tokyo" when he broke a sweat and earned his place in good law.
It cannot be called "
loser
", "failure" or "four of cups" for a mere result, because everyone knows their sporting objective and the level they are at.
The Argentine sport will hopefully fight to one day return to the Pan American ideal quintet. His rod is not Olympic.
That is why medals and diplomas are celebrated with soul and life in Tokyo.
Hurtful comments on social networks should not be naturalized or endured.
It is true that athletes should know that this world is not life itself and that if they get too deep in that well, they may find the sewer and then they will be faced with their tolerance or ease of escape.
Delfina Pignatiello,
Fernanda Russo
and Nadia Podoroska were some of those who exposed that space of miserable people.
No one is immune to the gaze of others.
For better or worse.
And each one lives with their ghosts.
Mental health is not bullshit.
Simone Biles made public the need to preserve her mental health AFP photo
If Tokyo 2020 effectively left a lesson, it is that, in case you did not know,
high performance athletes must learn to live with stress in the form of an octopus
, with tentacles such as pressure for results, difficulties to make ends meet, the family context, professional restraint, the need to stick to a plan (technical, nutritional, rest, physical and mental), the relationship with the media and the competition. That ephemeral moment where they put their training into play for four - or, in this case, five - years.
Every athlete talks about the “Olympic cycle” and intermediate goals, because planning requires those lines. There will be ups and downs, of course. You have to be prepared. Even for a pandemic during which they
did a thousand and one to continue training
, while they fought with the Wi-
Fi
connection to
follow the Zoom with the "teacher", with the neighbors because of the annoying noises or with their head so as not to give in.
The Olympic Games served, at the same time, to make those
political gestures
that the IOC intends to amputate
globally visible
, as if not allowing a minute of silence for the victims of Hiroshima was not a political gesture by omission. And, like never in history, Tokyo 2020 exhibited period themes in its window, inadmissible to be hidden in the 21st century: gender equality, gender identity, sexual diversity.
With satisfaction, anguish and - why not? - a bit of fear, the Argentine athletes arrived in Japan with minimum and maximum goals.
Of course, several went to add experience, to enjoy and measure themselves with the commissioner's horses.
Of course, others went to experience their first or second strong international competition post-pandemic.
Right at an Olympics, the mother of all competitions.
And of course some of them went to
compete against the elite with the hope of a podium
.
What everyone felt when they arrived and left was relief because Tokyo 2020 was made.
They arrived.
It was better or worse for them.
They did it.
The Argentine delegation, in full session, before the opening party of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Photo: COA
The lacks
The shortcomings of the Argentine sports infrastructure are so remarkable that why explain them if the clamor that education is a "public expense" is still heard.
Some time ago in the country it was thought about whether it was worth investing in sport as a whole or whether it was necessary to choose a select group by projection, results and level to allocate a larger budget as an advanced group towards the Olympic Games.
The second idea was quickly dismissed.
Sports policy thinks at the grassroots and at the South American, Pan American and Olympic levels, with scholarships to pure meritocracy that are not enough.
Obviously they are not enough
.
The ENARD, for example, went from having 42 million dollars a year in its creation to 13 million today, to the official exchange rate.
Non-viable.
Little more than a decade passed since the creation of the Entity and the deterioration began in February 2018, from the lack of financing that generated the decision of the government of Mauricio Macri that the items depended on the National Treasury. That is why today the project of the return of the funds that in its creation came from 1% of the telephone subscriptions. The question is how the evident internal that exists between its members will be resolved, whether they are from the
National Sports Secretariat
or the Argentine Olympic Committee.
The State - that is, each one of the Argentines - is the main economic support that the country's athletes have.
Almost the only one.
Private companies are conspicuous by their absence in their vast majority or appear only months before a big date.
It's always the same story.
And from emerging athletes or even renowned achievements in little-known - not unimportant - sports, brands demand thousands of followers on Instagram.
The post-truth: valuing someone not for what they are and what they obtain with dedication but based on how and how many they emotionally impact.
Too intricate is the labyrinth of Argentine sport to try to decipher it with an Olympic medal table.
HS
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