Alberto Ginés, first Olympic gold in climbing: "I have a bit of a mania for the medal"

Just three years ago, Alberto Ginés (Cáceres, 2002) was a climber called to appear, one day, in the elite of world climbing.

So, he used to forget the appointments scheduled with the few specialized media that required his attention and his father attended extra-sports.

A year and a half ago, against all odds, he hung the first Olympic gold medal in the history of climbing around his neck and he no longer forgets to attend to the press: an agency scrupulously keeps its agenda.

The life of Alberto Ginés has changed so much between anonymity and planetary recognition, that more than celebrating a medal it would be necessary to celebrate the recovered balance of an exceptional athlete.

A path that has not been easy.

Ginés took gold on August 5, 2021, at the age of 18.

But an Olympic champion, however premature it may be, does not cook up a race: in his case, the man from Cáceres was 13 years old when climbing was announced for the first time as a new Olympic discipline and he decided to move to the Sant Cugat High Performance Center thinking more in the next Paris Games than in Tokyo 2020. Everything, however, suffered a brutal acceleration: “I remember the anxiety I felt long before the date of the Games arrived.

I remember having a bad time.

It was all too obsessive.

The first objective was to qualify for the pre-Olympic and I did it in the last competition.

I had already achieved my goal… but then we began to dream of getting into the Games.

And suddenly, we did.

And from there the pressure grew: it was no longer enough to be,

Rather, you had to get into the final, and then make a great position... It was excessive and now I see that the best thing would have been to face this stage in a more relaxed way.

That being said, now I don't change anything that ended up happening (laughs)”.

The image of Alberto Ginés on the Japanese stage as soon as he found out about his victory refers to that of a disoriented young man, a half smile on his face, a certain block of movement while the silver and bronze medalists jump for joy and give hugs to his side. right and left.

Gold, in his case, was the prelude to an awakening, although extremely complicated months would still come.

The image of Alberto Ginés on the Japanese stage as soon as he found out about his victory refers to that of a disoriented young man, a half smile on his face, a certain block of movement while the silver and bronze medalists jump for joy and give hugs to his side. right and left.

Gold, in his case, was the prelude to an awakening, although extremely complicated months would still come.

The image of Alberto Ginés on the Japanese stage as soon as he found out about his victory refers to that of a disoriented young man, a half smile on his face, a certain block of movement while the silver and bronze medalists jump for joy and give hugs to his side. right and left.

Gold, in his case, was the prelude to an awakening, although extremely complicated months would still come.

As soon as he got off the podium, Ginés had the necessary lucidity to claim aid for his sport.

They have just arrived: “We have opened the first of the three phases of the CAR Sant Cugat climbing wall and we are happy.

It has taken time to materialize but it was necessary because to date we trained in public climbing walls where we could not even assemble our own blocks, and thus it is very difficult to continue in the elite... ”, he argues.

The arrival of the new facilities are the perfect complement to the stage of serenity that the climber has been demanding for months.

Five months passed between the medal and the first serious post-Olympic training.

“I remember that I returned to training on January 3, 2022: I had never been without them for so long, and what I noticed the most was the hardness of going back to training for five or six hours,

six days a week.

It took me another month to be focused on my work again, ”he explains.

However, the most severe task he has faced before and after the Games has been psychological, a true exercise in learning how to withstand brutal pressure.

“Josep Font, CAR psychologist, helped me a lot before and after the Games.

I am used to competing, but what I was not used to was that some journalists would call me at three in the morning.

Or to galas, press conferences, events, etc.

Such an avalanche was a sea change.

My way of being is rather introverted, although I have had to wake up for my own good, but I am not passionate about being the center of attention.

The maelstrom lasted four months and when it passed and they stopped calling me,

I was able to resume my training routine without missing everything that surrounds being famous at any given time.

I have managed to prevent fame from going to my head and that is the positive reading that I extract ”.

Alberto Ginés, Olympic climbing champion, in a ceded image. Javi Pec (Javi Pec)

The truth is that, now, Ginés's speech overflows with serenity.

Perhaps this is the biggest change that can be observed in his case.

And it's great news.

“Everything makes you grow.

If nothing had changed, it would be strange, but I still maintain my essence.

People can see only one change: before I was Alberto Ginés and now they present me as Alberto Ginés, Olympic champion, ”he observes.

After the Games, a funny hoax circulated: Ginés always traveled with the medal in a fanny pack, ready to display it when his schedule required it.

It was not entirely false: “I had the medal in a drawer in the CAR and then I gave it to my parents, who framed it at home.

I don't attach much importance to the medal as an object.

When I see her, I don't care.

I value four years of efforts, yes.

After the Games, they asked me for it in all the acts, so I had to carry it with me almost always.

He carried it in a fanny pack and when they asked for it, he took it out.

And so a joke came out that he always carried it with him.

It shocked me a lot that people didn't want to take a picture with me and the medal, but only with the medal.

And I said to myself, 'fuck me, I won it: the one that matters is me, not a piece of metal'.

From the cloud of success, Alberto Ginés also got off by a blow: the return to competition.

“It was tremendous.

To put you in context, I didn't train on the boulder for the Games because I focused on improving speed, which was easier for us than doing it on the boulder (this modality consists of climbing walls with hardly any height, without the need to use the rope, but drawing very hard and technical movements) ”, he starts.

“The rope is my strong point, but by not working on the block in the Games I had a very mediocre result, but the strategy ended up being perfect because I did a good job in speed.

That's why when I arrived this year at the first bouldering competition after the Games, it was a disaster and many media already ruled me out for the 2024 games. Then I started training bouldering and I've improved,

with positions among the first 12 and for next year I want to enter a World Cup final.

It wasn't so bad, in youth I was the European block champion, ”he warns.

At the Paris Games, there will be two separate climbing disciplines: speed on the one hand, and combined boulder and rope on the other.

Regarding the latter, he says: “It is very random: if in five minutes you do not understand the problem to be solved, you sink.

One can win a round of the World Cup and not enter the semifinals in the next round.

There are always surprises.

This season has been bittersweet.

I got injured and had to stop for two months.

I reached the European Championship very, very just, missing three World Cups for bouldering and four for rope.

I spent the month before the European touring European climbing walls and not knowing if I was going to crash or not in Munich.

He had not competed with rope for a year.

But in the end I was third in the combined, the modality of the next Games, so it seems an encouraging result.

Besides,

All in all, a huge battle is expected to reach qualification.

The level is so high that it would not be surprising if there were surprises that left a favorite out of the Olympic event.

“If I think about Paris, what worries me the most is qualifying: there are only 20 places but there are many who can choose to enter.

There is one year left until August 2023, when the qualifying round will take place, and for now I try not to think about it so as not to obsess.

I prefer to go step by step, but I know that there is nothing to do to not be nervous, although I try to turn that pressure into something good.

In this regard, he has plenty of experience.

Climbing has become a trend in Spain.

For example, four new climbing walls are being built in the Bilbao area alone: ​​"I am aware that, in part, thanks to me, the climbing that had been growing all over the planet has hit a growth spurt in Spain and in part it is because of me." medal.

It's like what happened in his day with Fernando Alonso or more recently with Carolina Marín: if you have a reference from your country, everything speeds up.

My arrival has been at the perfect time.

There are parents who became fond of watching the Games and now they tell me that they have involved their children and they climb together, which is what my father did with me from a very young age.

And for me it is a pride to know that I have been able to influence this dynamic ”, he confesses.

Apart from the psychologist Josep Font, Alberto's three main points of support are his father, his agent and his coach, David Macià, one who is convinced that his pupil's room for improvement is still enormous.

“Macià tells me that with a suitable climbing wall I am going to grow a lot.

It almost scares me to imagine the beatings that await me (laughs).

Then maybe I don't improve, but it's stimulating to have new work tools.

David tells me that we have only used 60% of the training resources that he has”.

If Ginés' motivation remains intact, he is aware that it fluctuates a lot among elite climbers: “If climbing stops motivating me, I'll quit even if it's my job, that's clear to me.

I think it is possible to continue competing after thirty.

The example is the Austrian Jacob Schubert, with whom I have trained a lot this year,

He is 31 years old and he is the most motivated, he continues to teach young people things and he continues to win.

It all depends on how you manage your relationship with climbing.”

Gold has stabilized its economy: “Now I can live only from the climb.

But I think that the Olympic gold and the climbing boom are going to open the doors for other climbers so they can become professional.

In the United States, an elite climber asks for an amount and if they don't give it to him, he looks for it until they give it to him.

In Spain, the brands gave you some material and thanks, perhaps because the climber did not ask for financial compensation.

This had to change, reach a golden mean and now the time may have come.

In Spain there are elite climbers who also work eight hours a day.

I don't know how they do it: they deserve to be able to live from climbing, ”he defends.

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