Andoni Cintado, silver in the Taekwondo World Championship in -80kg: "I didn't want to wake up in case it was all a dream"

Jon Andoni Cintado barely has a voice left after winning silver in -80kg in the Taekwondo World Cup that began this Monday in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Enough to ask that he prefers to be called Andoni and to chat for 15 minutes with this newspaper.

In Guadalajara it is 7:30 in the morning.

He has been awake for a while and confesses that he has barely been able to sleep.

“I didn't want to go to bed, I didn't want the mobile alarm to go off because I was afraid of waking up and that everything had been a dream.

Everything is so fleeting in this sport…”.

It was not a dream.

In the early hours of Monday to Tuesday, this 23-year-old from Bilbao, who has been at the CAR (Centro de Alto Rendimiento) in Madrid for barely a year, won silver in his first major international competition.

He defeated Olympic runner-up Saleh Elsharabaty, Olympic bronze medalist Seif Eissa,

and also the world runner-up Apóstolos Telikostoglu.

He lost in the final against the Korean Park Woo-Hyeok.

How have you celebrated it?

In the end I had no one to share it with either, my family and mine are in Spain.

I was going to go up to the terrace of the hotel, to be calm, but not even that because it was closed.

I had no choice but to go to the room, but there was Raúl [Martínez] who was competing today.

So, quietly, I began to watch a series, ”he says.

And he says that he still did not believe it in the anti-doping control.

"I had Dani Del Río [the physio] who told me: believe it because it's real, it's real, you've won the money."

Until world silver, he had only achieved a bronze in the 2019 European sub21.

More information

Spain, a talent factory in taekwondo

Andoni has a degree in industrial design engineering.

He left Bilbao -where he started doing taekwondo at The Masters club in Basauri- after finishing high school and settled in Valencia.

He tells it so.

He “He wanted to study abroad and live other experiences away from home.

I agreed that my career was in Valencia and that I had made contact with a high-level taekwondo club that would be great for me to continue growing, Deportivo Olimpo”.

There he was combining studies and training.

In September he handed in his final degree project.

“And look at things in life… As it is industrial design and product development, one had to be developed and I decided to develop taekwondo shoes.

I got a nine and a half, ”he recounts.

Everyone in the team highlights his well-furnished head.

Miguel Ángel Herranz, the man in charge of the men's team, who recruited Andoni last year as a

to help the Olympians in the preparation for the Games and who, finally, took him to the CAR in Madrid, says it among all of them.

where he entered at the age of 22.

Very late compared to the average of athletes that he usually enters with 16-17.

Herranz explains it: “He already had his life on track in Valencia and agreed to leave everything to come live and train in a residence, and that for me says everything about his dedication.

I knew at that moment that he had been right.

His physical qualities are amazing, he is very strong and brave.

He knew that he was going to contribute great things to the team and that he was going to achieve part of the dreams that he had and for which he gave up everything ”.

Andoni says that this process was not easy.

First, because he had already started working and taking a master's degree in business administration.

Second, because he had to ask his parents for money again like when he was younger.

And third, because adapting to the work rhythms of a high-performance center is never easy, especially when you come from training at the club where everything is familiar and you are the

“I was quite involved in company practices, in two companies in Valencia, formalizing my employment situation.

My philosophy has always been: enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

But it got to a point where I could no longer go to my boss every two weeks and tell him: I need five days because I have the Bulgarian Open…”.

At the same time, he realized that in order to be at the level of his CAR teammates, he had to train a lot more.

And that generated some anxiety in the first sessions.

“And then there was the economic issue, which weighed heavily.

I had college scholarships and my jobs and I didn't have excessive expenses.

And of course, suddenly you go from that to having to ask your parents for money again... Madrid also seemed a bit big for me.

It was a host of things that made the experience a bit hard at first.”

But, he says,

And see that in the end the reward always comes.

“If you ask me two days ago, I tell you that those who work well and hard do not always have their reward… But today I celebrate and enjoy these moments.

I have been runner-up in the world, but this sport is so fleeting that next year in Spain a male Adriana Cerezo will appear that weighs 80 kilos and takes your place.

And you have to assume that with all the naturalness in the world ”.

He says that his parents (Julio, is Cuban and has an orthopedics and Garbiñe, a nurse) stayed up until 3 o'clock to see him.

“Then they told me that they went to bed because at 6 they had to be up, but knowing the two of them, I don't think they slept at all…”.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on