The appointment is at a boxing club in Chamberí.
Alba Lago (37 years old, Vigo) arrives wasting energy and in a minute she puts on sports clothes and boxing gloves.
Here she was one more until the news at 6:15 in the morning on Telecinco, which she presented for four years, broke her life.
A year and a half ago, she became Pedro Piqueras's first partner on the prime-time newscast.
Now Lago begins to recover her life and has returned to boxing.
This August she has had to work and present the desktop news.
The talk takes place the day before the energy saving plan restrictions come into force, and she is delighted that the air conditioning is limited to 27 degrees.
Ask.
How did he get into boxing?
Response.
She lived in this neighborhood.
They opened the club and it was my pre-morning stage.
There is a before and after in my life with the passage through the morning edition.
Before, I had a life, a lot of energy, optimism was what prevailed in my routine and I came a lot to box, three days a week.
I don't hit anyone, so I take my anger out on the bag.
My anger and my excess energy.
It is the only discipline I have found that allows me to concentrate 100%.
It's kind of like
mindfulness
.
My head is like a centrifuge.
P.
In what other ways do you give outlet to that brain that spins?
A.
Well, I can't.
I think it's only for while I'm sleeping, and I don't know to what extent.
My head is going at 100,000 revolutions per minute.
I think I also do what I do for that reason.
Q.
You have been on television since you were 19 years old.
R.
The dean of the faculty suggested some students to do a writing test in a testimonial program for Galician television.
I had already been working in the summers for two years folding clothes.
They must have seen me quite self-confident and they took me as an editor.
Shortly after, they reinvented the program and did a camera test for the entire newsroom.
I was the youngest, they liked me and they took me.
And then from one side to the other.
The 2008 crisis caught me, I came to Madrid, I was on Marca TV.
And when this project was finished, I went to London in 2011. I came back from London because they called me from Informativos Telecinco to cover a vacation vacancy as an editorial assistant.
I was 25 years old.
Q.
Was it hard for you to leave Vigo?
R.
I left when I was 22, 23 years old.
very hard
The fatal pass.
She cried in the corners.
It is true that I was very stimulated to come to Madrid.
I really wanted to and I knew that if I wanted to continue growing and learning, the future was in Madrid, but I was very sad.
Those of us who are not from the capital think that we came to Madrid in passing and in the end that passage is dilating in time.
But at first I had a terrible time, I drowned because I couldn't see the sea.
The presenter, before practicing boxing.
claudio alvarez
P.
He appeared to replace Pilar Rubio in
I know what you did.
R.
I was 21 years old or so.
It was the heyday of
I Know What You Did
, how was he going to say no?
In the first test we were like 100 girls.
They made you speak in English, tell jokes, improvise an interview... The final test was to record a report on a friendly football match: there was Dani Martín, Bustamante, Fernando Hierro..., and I had to attract attention so that they would vote for me.
Q.
But did you pass the tests?
R.
Yes, in the end there were three of us left, Salomé Jiménez, Cristina Pedroche and I, and the rest is history.
My profile was totally opposite to that of Pilar Rubio, I wore
braces
at the time, I appeared on screen with them.
Q.
Would you like to present another format in which you were not so corseted as in a news program?
R.
Right now I am learning from what I do.
This is like a long-distance race and at the end you have a goal, and it is up to you if you want to enjoy the road, bearing in mind that to reach that goal the road is very rarely straight.
Q.
What is that goal in your case?
A.
The issue is that, I haven't set any goals for a long time.
I am a sponge.
I try to learn the most from the moment I'm living.
I have been lucky to surround myself with brilliant people.
You have to keep training, because at any moment a new opportunity arises and you have to have the muscle to face it.
Q.
How was your life while you presented the morning show?
Was that life?
A.
No. On a personal level, it was hell.
On a professional level, he gave me security, some tables that mean that I can now be sharing the screen with Pedro Piqueras.
In that aspect it has been a brutal ascent, but subject to my personal life.
I am a very sociable person and suddenly you stop having contact with yours.
At 18.00 you have to go to bed to wake up at 1.00 in the morning.
Having a partner is a utopia.
Food doesn't taste the same...
Q.
What do you learn next to Pedro Piqueras?
A.
Everything.
In addition to my boss, I am the first partner he has on television.
It was a mutual learning.
Talking to Pedro is the history of journalism.
He is my teacher.
And he has an amazing sense of humor, a lot of stink.
He is very creative and has a lot of informational muscle.
Q.
How important is personal image on television?
R.
Very important, I think that the image of a presenter has to be consistent with the quality of the content that is being broadcast.
A curiosity is that news presenters don't have their nails painted, because if you use your hands to communicate and you have neon green nails, the interest goes to the nails, not to what I'm telling you.
I always advocate discretion.
Less is more.
Also my day to day.
Q.
Your haircut is already a sign of identity for you.
R.
I never thought that a haircut could have such an impact.
I cut it very short many years ago, like a boy, because it seemed fatal to me that they linked the feminine to long hair, and two months later I went out on the street.
Do not think that I stayed there as a star presenter.
I'm not going to say where, but it happened.
I was very cute, I was the star of the
indie festivals
... The thing about hair was that I move around a lot, and long hair, with the hairstyle they did for us, fell on my face all the time.
A super young hairdresser told me two years ago that now she wears her hair straight, with a flat iron.
Another hairdresser came and she started to maintain it for me, and it gave me an impressive shine, and that's where my hair became fashionable, so much so that I began to appear in fashion magazines.
Now I can't change it.
But look, Ana Blanco has been wearing this haircut for I don't know how many years...
Alba Lago presents the Telecinco desktop news program in August.
Q.
As a person from Vigo, what do you think when you see your mayor with the Christmas lights in August?
R.
Let's see, Vigo is committed to the mayor.
Abel Caballero has managed to place Vigo on the map due to his insistence or his staunch defense of everything good that it has, and has managed to attract a lot of tourism at a time of year such as Christmas in Galicia, which is not that it is an attraction for the visitor.
Now, with the energy saving plan… It is a matter of individual responsibility, and by individual I also mean the leaders, both local, regional and national.
Christmas in Vigo this year would make sense if they were not as bright as in previous years.
Q.
Going back to boxing, have you received many blows in your life?
R.
Yes, I have taken blows, but I do not count them.
Q.
And do you get up easily or is it difficult for you?
R.
I get up even though everything hurts, even though I'm injured.
And I wake up with a smile.
That is something that bothers a lot of people.
Someone optimistic causes rejection, someone who is not telling her problems every day and who always has a plan B to get ahead, with vitality and who sees the positive side of things.
The more it bothers them, the more I try to keep smiling.
But many, I have taken many blows.
And I've learned from everyone, they don't do it to me again.
Never again.
You can follow EL PAÍS TELEVISIÓN on
or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
.
50% off
Subscribe to continue reading
read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber
