Gold and silver for Spain, triumphant march in the European Championships in Munich

How he enjoys it, loneliness, Miguel Ángel López, who is not the cyclist, but is also Superman, or even more Superman, marching upright, slender, through Ludwigstrassen towards the Munich Odeon square.

He marches alone because he is the first, distant, distant, all the others.

And so, lap after lap, the sun shines brightly on the sidewalks, it hurts, a carousel of three kilometers until it turns 35, passing again and again in front of the university building, the Philologicum pavilion, on whose steps, to the shadow, several students sitting, waiting like someone waiting for Godot, perhaps discussing the philosophy of walking, which they can understand, always one foot on the ground, the other on the move, all the senses alert, and also about its logic , which can only be understood by seeing life as a path that is traveled, not as a destination that must be reached as soon as possible.

And at one end of the carousel, at the Siegestor triumphal arch, a batucada marks the rhythm of those who march so fast, rowers from Ben-Hur, and at the other, in the Odeon, Macarena sounds, which,

More information

Raquel González takes silver in the 35-kilometre walk

López won with 2h 26m 49s, at a pace of 4m 10s per kilometer, and walking, and almost three minutes ahead of the second, the German, Christopher Linke, and four minutes over the third, the Italian Matteo Giupponi.

In women, González, second, arrived two minutes behind Antigoni Ntrismpioti (2h 47m, 4m 45s per kilometer) and 48 seconds ahead of the third, the Hungarian Viktória Madarász.

🥇 EUROPE CHAMPION!

🥇

Wow 𝗘𝗫𝗛𝗜𝗕𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗢́𝗡 by Miguel Ángel López in #Munich2022 😍

You are #PasiónPorCompetir

Long live the march 🇪🇸 and long live @MA_LopezNicolas 👏🏼

First gold for #SpainAthletics!

pic.twitter.com/Z9980chfWx

– athleticsRFEA (@athletismoRFEA) August 16, 2022

And, between drums in one square and brass bands in the other, the shouts of the coaches in the endless straight.

José Antonio Carrillo, always from Cieza, the coach of López, from Llanos de Brujas, also in Murcia, no longer takes orphidales to overcome the nerves of the day of battle.

"I'm already a grandfather," he says.

"I know how to be calm."

He gets excited as always, or more so, because he sees that his chick - world runner-up in Moscow, nine years ago, European champion for the first time eight years ago, on a rainy morning in Zurich, next to the windows of Marc Chagall, world champion seven years ago, next to the Nido, the Beijing Olympic stadium—, always in the 20 kilometers, as well groomed as ever, that sculpted profile, flies again six years after the crash of the Rio Games.

Raquel González celebrates silver in the 35-kilometre walk. FILIP SINGER (EFE)

And he does not shout very loudly at López, not so loudly, at least, as the long, intense messages shout at him, Santi Pérez, the federation's marching director, to Raquel González, who endures the unchangingly hard rhythm of the Greek Antigoni Ntrismpioti.

"You're going to win, Raquel, you're going to win," says Pérez, who was a 50-kilometer walker and knows the virtues of patience and decisive, fleeting, final attack.

The blow that concludes the tragedy.

"You have to change.

You are going to attack.

So go thinking about the moment in which you are going to do it, go visualizing it, because you are going to win”.

But it doesn't change.

Before seeing her again, one lap later, Pérez gets other news, the Greek leaves, Raquel can't stand it.

“The Greek slipped away a bit, but I thought, go away, go away, I'm going to give it back to you, you'll see, but, at the end, there came a time when, wow,

I was still focused on the attempt, but I didn't have the extra energy to go for it”, says the 32-year-old marcher from Mataró, who started marching with Josep Marín and has been training with José Antonio Quintana for a few years in Madrid.

The athlete, fifth in the Eugene World Cup, suffered from covid on her return from the United States and, although she traveled to León to work with the rest of her team, she was barely able to prepare, and she lacked, explains Quintana, the final adjustments, the point that would have given him strength to change.

"Santi Pérez's motivating messages are always spot on," adds the marcher, who, says Pérez, is a pure and crystalline talent, a class as big as it is fragile, and delicate.

But in the end, he shines in the Munich sun as big as his cheerful smile.

but I didn't have the extra energy to go for it”, says the 32-year-old marcher from Mataró, who started marching with Josep Marín and has been training with José Antonio Quintana for a few years in Madrid.

The athlete, fifth in the Eugene World Cup, suffered from covid on her return from the United States and, although she traveled to León to work with the rest of her team, she was barely able to prepare, and she lacked, explains Quintana, the final adjustments, the point that would have given him strength to change.

"Santi Pérez's motivating messages are always spot on," adds the marcher, who, says Pérez, is a pure and crystalline talent, a class as big as it is fragile, and delicate.

But in the end, he shines in the Munich sun as big as his cheerful smile.

but I didn't have the extra energy to go for it”, says the 32-year-old marcher from Mataró, who started marching with Josep Marín and has been training with José Antonio Quintana for a few years in Madrid.

The athlete, fifth in the Eugene World Cup, suffered from covid on her return from the United States and, although she traveled to León to work with the rest of her team, she was barely able to prepare, and she lacked, explains Quintana, the final adjustments, the point that would have given him strength to change.

"Santi Pérez's motivating messages are always spot on," adds the marcher, who, says Pérez, is a pure and crystalline talent, a class as big as it is fragile, and delicate.

But in the end, he shines in the Munich sun as big as his cheerful smile.

who began marching with Josep Marín and has spent a few years in Madrid training with José Antonio Quintana.

The athlete, fifth in the Eugene World Cup, suffered from covid on her return from the United States and, although she traveled to León to work with the rest of her team, she was barely able to prepare, and she lacked, explains Quintana, the final adjustments, the point that would have given him strength to change.

"Santi Pérez's motivating messages are always spot on," adds the marcher, who, says Pérez, is a pure and crystalline talent, a class as big as it is fragile, and delicate.

But in the end, he shines in the Munich sun as big as his cheerful smile.

who began marching with Josep Marín and has spent a few years in Madrid training with José Antonio Quintana.

The athlete, fifth in the Eugene World Cup, suffered from covid on her return from the United States and, although she traveled to León to work with the rest of her team, she was barely able to prepare, and she lacked, explains Quintana, the final adjustments, the point that would have given him strength to change.

"Santi Pérez's motivating messages are always spot on," adds the marcher, who, says Pérez, is a pure and crystalline talent, a class as big as it is fragile, and delicate.

But in the end, he shines in the Munich sun as big as his cheerful smile.

Quintana explains, the final adjustments, the point that would have given him the strength to change.

"Santi Pérez's motivating messages are always spot on," adds the marcher, who, says Pérez, is a pure and crystalline talent, a class as big as it is fragile, and delicate.

But in the end, he shines in the Munich sun as big as his cheerful smile.

Quintana explains, the final adjustments, the point that would have given him the strength to change.

"Santi Pérez's motivating messages are always spot on," adds the marcher, who, says Pérez, is a pure and crystalline talent, a class as big as it is fragile, and delicate.

But in the end, he shines in the Munich sun as big as his cheerful smile.

photo gallery

The men's and women's 35-kilometre walk finals of the European Athletics Championships, in pictures

To López, Pérez tells him to enjoy it, not to give up, to think about his family, about his Daniel who is a year and a half old, about his wife, Daniela, about everyone, as if López were no longer thinking about them, about how He has changed his life since he went to Rio ambitious and favorite, and even with the desire to double and compete in the 20 and 50 kilometers, and Carrillo already wore the straw hat to burst it with a punch like Sam Mussabini in

when his Harold Abraham wins the gold medal in Paris 1924. On the stones of Munich, behind the Isar and its breeze, López flies.

He is emerging from the “desert of medals, overshadowed by other teammates” into which he plunged after Rio.

He talks about the youngest, about Álvaro Martín, European champion of the 20 in Berlin 2018, about Diego García, runner-up.

He is not going to fail as the Swedish Perseus Karlsom has failed, who has left atomic and has succumbed.

And when he finishes, López laughs and shouts, now yes, now I can say it, I have won.

And he talks about how different it is to be an elite athlete being a father, about how long the concentrations are in Sierra Nevada, in Colorado, in Font Romeu, about the desire to squeeze his Daniel and his Daniela, who works and has not could be in Munich,

“I have always had faith to achieve something great again and the 35 has given me the opportunity.

I have never lost hope, the illusion to continue competing and training, although it has not been easy”, says the athlete, who has proven, like not many, that patience pays, that things come.

“One more medal for the sack, a second European championship.

And, now, Paris, in 24, the Olympic medal, the one I'm missing”.

Carrillo did not bring Mussabini's hat to Munich.

“No, for a European it is not.

It is for some Games”, says Carrillo.

He saves it for Paris, where, 100 years after Mussabini, everything will end happily.

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