Jaxier Sotomayor: "I'm not afraid to dedicate myself to high jump, on the contrary, it motivates me"

Javier Sotomayor, with his son Jaxier, on the Guadalajara athletics track.Claudio Alvarez

Javier Sotomayor trains his son Jaxier, who wants to be a high jump champion, like his father.

It rains in Guadalajara.

They suspend the session – for a high jumper, there is no greater enemy than the rain –, take shelter in an alley, and chat in front of the journalist's recorder.

As soon as he sees it, Jaxier says, “an interview, oh, what nerves”.

“The same thing happens to me before I compete, I feel nervous… But I like it.

I guess it's the adrenaline that starts to build up and then helps me compete better."

Thus, competing so well that in the final he jumped five centimeters higher than he had ever jumped in training, Jaxier won the Spanish under-16 indoor championship in March.

"In training I have not gone over 1.86 meters, but I was champion of Spain with 1.91", he says.

“And I didn't expect it.

In the competition I felt very, very good, and it happened”.

Father and son talk about music and, inevitably, argue.

Father, from Limonar, province of Matanzas (Cuba), from the middle of the 20th century, is from salsa, from Sonora Matancera, from Celia Cruz…;

son, habanero of the 21st century, is from reggaeton.

The father is indignant, as offended as a bishop before a blasphemer, a sacrilegious person;

the son, erre que erre, reaffirms himself in the difference, the x against the uve.

Jaxier.

I love music, but I don't listen to salsa.

I listen to lively music, reggaeton...

Javier.

You don't listen to music, then.

X.

Isn't reggaeton music...?

That is music.

I sauce I don't listen...

J.

But tell me who is a reggaeton musician.

If probably none have gone to the conservatory, ha ha ha.

Music is music.

Those people sing in quotes and someone from behind makes a

and sings on top of that.

X.

I'm not saying that I don't like salsa, because I have heard it, but not hearing it every day.

J.

It's music made in a demo.

It's not a real...

X.

But that's what I like.

That is what motivates me before competing.

And I like many, from Puerto Rico, Dominicans, Colombians, Cubans… They are all from the Caribbean.

J.

To really make salsa you have to know about music.

To be reggaeton you don't need to know music.

A reggaeton director may know something about music, but a salsa director has to really know, what instrument he out of tune, what choir he out of tune... All those things.

Ask.

The rhythm of the jumper's steps towards the bar, so syncopated, is it more salsa or more reggaeton?

J.

Reggaeton, reggaeton... That's right, it's reggaeton, yes, yes, yes.

The rhythm is.

Reggaeton has rhythm, I'm not saying it doesn't.

It has rhythm and a lot of it.

But we are talking about music, not rhythm…

X.

That's where I win, eh, that's where I win.

Next question, pass word.

The question thrown into the air resolves the dispute and focuses the debaters once again on what unites them most, apart from blood, or thanks to blood and genes, the high jump.

Jaxier closes the dialectic fight and then introduces himself: “I was born in Havana in December 2007 and I live in Guadalajara with my parents and brothers.

I'm in second of ESO.

I am champion of Spain indoors and I aspire to be also outdoors”.

“He started doing athletics in Cuba,” the father interrupts, “and, like me, like everyone in Cuba, at this age they do various disciplines, and of that discipline, the best one you do is the one in which you specialize.

Thanks to that I was a jumper.

And he has consequently followed the discipline.

You can't fool the genes.

We have dual nationality.

He competes in Spain, but not for Spain, yet.

Until he competes internationally, he still has a choice, and he hasn't made a choice yet, no, no.

He has more freedom to choose.

At the moment, no, but soon he will have to decide”.

X.

I am 1.81m tall.

J.

And he will grow to between 1.92m, 1.94m, like me.

Good height for height.

At 1.90 you already have an ideal height.

It must continue to grow.

To enter the Olympic Museum that the IOC founded in Lausanne, you have to go through a large garden, climb several flights of stairs flanked by marble sculptures of great athletes, Paavo Nurmi, Emil Zatopek..., and, before the glass door, pass below a hanging slat, supported by two poles, at a height of 2.45 meters.

A plaque fixed to one of the posts explains that this is the height that Javier Sotomayor surpassed in Salamanca on July 27, 1993, more than anyone else in history, a world record still.

245 are the three digits with which the prince of Limonar accompanies his name on the networks and in phone books, and 2.45 is the name of the restaurant that the Barcelona 92 ​​Olympic champion, and six-time world champion, has opened in La Havana, with a stage for musical performances and a dance floor.

J.

The bar, at the moment, is going well.

In Havana it is one of the places most chosen by people, although we have been in a very complicated economic situation for two years.

These two years from the start of the pandemic to the present have been the two worst years of ours.

X.

I'm not afraid to dedicate myself to the same thing as my father, the best in history.

Fear, no, on the contrary, it motivates me.

Q.

It is assumed that if your father ever accepts that someone jumps more than 2.45 meters, he will prefer that it be his son.

He already plays, right?

Almost 30 years there, at the top.

At 10 it's your turn to inherit...

X.

I hope my father thinks that, hahahaha.

I hope he thinks that.

He hopefully, hopefully.

J.

I named him Jaxier because I already have an older son Javier, and so as not to repeat.

They are similar but not the same.

And his little brother is Jadier.

He is eight years old and he also does athletics here, in Guadalajara, at the school run by Luis Felipe Méliz.

X.

I like the name, I like it, but most of the time they call me Javier thinking that Jaxier is a typo and I have to remind everyone that my name is not Javier.

And when Sotomayor Sr. travels to Cuba, one week every couple of months, it is Méliz who also trains Jaxier.

Méliz, Cuban by birth, Spanish as an athlete, silver medalist in the long jump at the 2012 European Championships, is another of the coaches from the Caribbean island, like the best-known Iván Pedroso, the coach of Peleteiro and Yulimar Rojas, who have turned the capital of Alcarria into a

Havana that attracts athletes from all over the world.

X.

I really like Guadalajara.

Lots of Cuban here.

I feel at home.

We're friends with Jordan Diaz, the triple jumper.

We all live near here, near the stadium.

J.

Today there are more great athletes who are good coaches because there are more who dedicate themselves, what happens is that before there were very few.

Before it wasn't like that, before those who didn't really stand out did it, the others, when they retired, went about their business.

In Cuba it is like that, most of the coaches were great athletes.

90 percent.

I also think that experience helps a bit when transferring how you did it.

What you did, that seemed easy to the public.

None of the movements that I did or any jump was easy.

Apparently in the eyes of people I may have looked like this.

X.

It has happened, it has happened, that things that seem easy to him don't come out at first, technical gestures...

J.

Sometimes I crush it a bit, that's why...

X.

Sometimes you make very, very, very unnecessary comparisons.

It's that he compares himself to me when he was 16 years old and he was already a beast that jumped 2.33m... And I'm still 14 and I'm learning, and he compares himself... Very crazy, huh?

The surname, at the beginning, yes, weighed a lot.

I used to go to the competitions thinking that he had to do it well, forced by my father, but over time I've gotten used to it and like... Sometimes he does feel it.

But being compared to my father, uff, makes me mature, but for the better.

I like him above all, and I always say it, his originality.

He was always trying to make new things just from him, and that caught my attention.

And he forces me, of course, of course.

Although I am not original, because I copy him a lot.

J.

Hehe.

At 14, her age now, I was already jumping 2 meters...

X.

I'm nine centimeters away, eh, not much farther.

Training, the most I have jumped is 1.86m.

J.

That is important, surpassing oneself in competition, not being a champion in training.

It is important.

X.

What I don't discuss with my father is soccer.

Go Madrid!

Go Madrid!

I'm from Madrid too, like my father, but he's not obligated, it's not because he's my father, that's what I feel.

J.

It is a coincidence that all my children are from Madrid, I have instilled none of them.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on