'Hop, step, jump' ... and Ana Peleteiro appears in Almodóvar's new film

Never seen before, an athlete from a minority specialty such as the triple jump cannot walk through Madrid without having to stop every two steps to sign an autograph, the least, and to take selfies with everyone, the most.

It is Ana Peleteiro, who on Sunday, August 1, won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Games and two weeks later, upon returning to Spain, found a fame that she had not imagined.

More information

• Yulimar Rojas breaks the world record for triple jump and Ana Peleteiro is bronze

• 'Parallel Mothers', the new film by Pedro Almodóvar, will be released in September to encourage the return to theaters

"It seemed that she was going with Messi or with Ronaldo, Ana has become so well known in 10 days," says her agent, Alberto Suárez, who attributes the athlete's fame to the fact that the Olympic final fell on Sunday and at maximum time audience in Spain, at the time of vermouth. That competition was dominated by the Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas, a training partner of the Galician jumper in Guadalajara and who with her victory set a new world women's record. "And then, having dinner at a luxury Japanese restaurant in the posh area of ​​Madrid," Suárez continues, "everyone got up from the table, old and young, to take pictures with her and congratulate her."

But Ana Peleteiro, 25, is also already a star beyond the limited world of athletics.

In networks, a fragment of his interview went viral after winning third place in the competition.

In it, accompanied by her friend and also a medalist, in gymnastics, Ray Zapata, when he assured that they are colored she answered: “We are black, what color!

They are colored, they change more than the Sun ”.

Also in the cinema, and that until September 1 the new film by Pedro Almodóvar is not released.

The cast of

Parallel Mothers,

the film by the La Mancha director that will open the Venice Film Festival, includes Penélope Cruz, Rossy de Palma and Julieta Serrano,

Almodóvar girls

lifelong; established actors, such as Israel Elejalde and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, who fulfill a dream working with the most famous Spanish director; the young Murcian Milena Smit… and Ana Peleteiro. An Olympic bronze medalist, Galician with African blood, of which she is as proud as of the life she lives, and of how she has managed to combine her profession with this cameo. Interests that purists consider pernicious and nocturnal because they distract the athlete from their only goal, performance and the medal, with the highest excellence on the athletic track.

"Well, I wouldn't say that I act in the movie either, that I'm part of the cast," explained the athlete-actress before leaving for Tokyo.

“It's just a cameo, I had to do myself.

It is a very short thing, but for me, for my parents, who are lifelong fans of Pedro, the fact of going out, even if it was only a photo of me in the background, which is not like that ... No matter how small, it's going to be the milk ”.

Congratulations Ana. Https://t.co/fRKUITJHku

- Agustín Almodóvar official (@AgustinAlmo) August 1, 2021

"It was a super fast thing, a lovely experience," says the athlete from Ribeira (A Coruña). “I was a little scared, because this world of cinema is already like a little more ... I don't know, I saw them as arrogant, colder ... And not at all. Both Pedro and Penelope and the whole team were lovely. They were amazing and I enjoyed it. " And as can be seen in the filming of the triplet scene that Agustín Almodóvar, the film's producer, retweeted to congratulate the Galician champion on August 1, even the director is surprised by the athlete's dancing skills. "But you can dance," says the director behind the camera when he sees her perform a pirouette after posing. "Yes, I did ballet," she replies, "but many years ago."

The call in February of the production company El Deseo, from Almodóvar, supposed, in a certain way, the fourth phase of a triple jump, a landing on the top and not in the sand after the

hop, step, jump

(boat, step and jump ). “Penelope Cruz works as a photographer. He does photo sessions with different people and Pedro wanted one of them to be an athlete, and instead of taking an actress or a model, he, as always, reinventing himself and breaking with everything, he said, why am I not going to fuck an athlete, we have them here beautiful and charming ... And that she chose me is an honor ”.

The 14.87 meters with which Peleteiro came third in Tokyo set a national record and is the 35th world mark in history.

At 16 she was a junior world champion and two years ago she was in Europe.

The athlete missed a day from filming on her way to the Games.

“I have the soul of an artist.

I'm not going to be an artist, but I like it and since now I have friends from other worlds, incredible friends ... ”, he says.

“Meeting people from other unions makes you have conversations that have nothing to do with your day-to-day life, and that makes me feel alive.

Not only am I good for some things, I am good for many others.

I like to disconnect with very alternative people, really ”.

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