26/06/2023 and las 08:00 CEST
The athletes are on the warpath to prevent the 35-kilometer race from disappearing from the Olympic program, which they want to replace with a relay
Athletic walking, a discipline that has brought great success to Spanish and Murcian sports, is in serious danger of extinction. In the Paris Games there will be no individual test of 35 kilometers, which will be changed to a relay
Walking is the athletic specialty that has given Spanish sport the most success. Also to Murcia, thanks to Juan Manuel Molina and Miguel Ángel López Nicolás, double champion of Europe and the world. But now it is in danger of extinction.
To find out the causes, LA OPINIÓN has spoken with four of the protagonists of the last European event, the champions of the 20 and 35 kilometers, the Extremaduran Álvaro Martín and Miguel Ángel López, respectively, the fourth classified in the long distance, Manuel Bermúdez, and the coach of all of them, José Antonio Carrillo, considered one of the best coaches in the world.
The origin of the conflict
Being an Olympic athlete is the goal of any walker. The IOC wants to eliminate the long-distance events from the Olympic program, since it considers that they do not provide a show to attract the spectator. That is why he changed the 50 for the 35 kilometers. But in Paris he wants to go further:#suppress the 35 to replace them with a relay. «For all minority sports such as athletics, the Olympic Games is the most important thing. It is the way to attract sponsors, scholarships and prizes”, says Álvaro Martín, a graduate in Political Science and Law, one of the leaders of the protests started in order to save a modality with more than a hundred years of history in the Games and which has been an inexhaustible source of medals for Spanish sport. “We are in danger of extinction,” adds Martín. Bermúdez sentence: «From the high positions of the sport it is clear that they want to kill this discipline. They started at 50 and now they are going at 35. We are afraid, we don’t know what will become of us in the future », he explains.
«There will continue to be World Cups and Europeans, but the sport that is not Olympic we already know what happens, it stops having attention. We would also lose the ADO plan. It would hurt us a lot not to be in the Games”, confesses Miguel Ángel López.
«It will continue to exist in world and European games, but the dream of any athlete is to be in the Games. I am close to retirement, but I am sorry because now what do you say to those people who want to be Álvaro or Miguel Ángel, “adds José Antonio Carrillo.
Changes without counting on them
The athletes are the ones who put on the show. But in that case they have not been counted on to introduce the changes. “We arrived from the European Cup happy after being champions and when we got off the plane we forgot everything when the journalists asked us about the decision to eliminate the 35 and leave a relay,” laments Bermúdez.
«Every discipline can evolve and make changes. We are not opposed to them, but we would have liked to have participated, at least to have a voice”, says Martín, while López adds that “we do not know why that decision was made because they have not explained it to us either. It is a historical discipline and it has lacked the respect we deserve.
One year and without regulation
In a year the Paris Games will be held. While all the athletes know what to expect, the walkers still do not have a regulation for that relay event that will replace the 35 kilometers. “It would be more understandable if it was done for the Los Angeles Games, but they haven’t counted on us, that’s what bothers me,” complains Martín, who considers that “the situation now is very bad, things as they are.” «With one year to go, it is supposedly unfeasible to change the Olympic calendar. It is that we do not even know how they are going to do that relay, “says Bermúdez.
“We don’t even know how this relay will work,” says López, who continues to wonder how it will be done, since the information they have is that it will be mixed and that it will be over the distance of the marathon, each athlete carrying out relays of about 10 kilometers . “What do we do while our partner is relaying hers?” ask the athletes.
“As of today there are no regulations,” laments José Antonio Carrillo. «An uncle or an aunt is going to have to wait 40 minutes until the other athlete arrives. During that time he must be filming on a tapestry or I don’t know what”, says the technician. «The first thing that was raised is that 35 men and women were going to be made together by teams. They were not very clear if the times would be added. From the IOC they did not see it because perhaps the men arrived much earlier than the women. And overnight, a marathon relay with 25 teams, which in the case of Spain could have two, “says the ciezano.
The Federation is inhibited
The marchers met a few days ago with the president of the Spanish Federation, Raúl Chapado. They asked for a collaboration that they did not find. «Our president is a member of World Athletic and he is one of the interlocutors with the Competition Commission. We wanted to know from him how the situation is, because we only knew through tweets and rumors. He could tell us little or nothing. He also did not want to tell us if the march will be in Los Angeles, which is said to be eliminated. We demanded that he sign a joint statement and the surprise is that he told us no, “explains Martín, who was one of the athletes who took the lead in that meeting. «We came practically as we entered. We realized that the president is even against us. He threw balls out », says Bermúdez. «They have not gotten wet with a historical discipline for Spanish athletics. Our successes have meant aid for all athletics through CSD scholarships”, adds Miguel Ángel López.
Martín also sees particular interests in Raúl Chapado. «He wants to access the vice-presidency of the International Federation. He is running on Sebastian Coe’s candidacy. How is he going to turn against his bosses? I threw it in his face at the meeting », he recalls.
«The problem right now is that the Olympic Committee is a company, not a sports entity, it only thinks about making money, and probably many more things are in danger of a sport like athletics that is the origin of the Games along with swimming. You hear of eliminating the 200, the 5,000 and the marathon”, denounces Carrillo, who also warns that the “Americans, since they do not have marchers, do not want this specialty in Los Angeles 2028”.
The handicap of technology
The march has always been questioned due to the subjectivity of the judges’ decisions. Not applying technology is a matter that athletes consider to have harmed them: “What has done us the most damage is that we do not have the technology, the electronic chip that I have been claiming for many years and that has never been put into operation” , says Carrillo, who advances that “this year there is a project that is going to be put into practice in the sub-23 category to check the electronic system and offer it to World Athletic.”
«The march has always generated a lot of controversy due to the technical aspect. The disqualifications have the subjective component of the judges that other tests do not have. We saw the light because the technology was going to arrive, but it hasn’t just arrived. They have always tried to put pressure with it to take us away, ”says López.
A grim future
Only the 20 kilometers will continue as it is now in the Olympic program. For this reason, the long-distance walkers are doomed to ‘disappearance’, since the relay also harms them. “It is clear that endurance athletes should think about recycling or looking at something else,” says Carrillo. This situation is common for López and Bermúdez. «It touches me particularly. On the 20th, honestly, it’s going to be difficult and I’ll have to reconvert myself, something that’s going to cost me, but I’m going to try. We marchers in the background have done us a fat job. It’s as if they suddenly took away the marathon,” says López. “You can be a world and European champion, but in the end, the Olympic medal is what any athlete wants,” says Bermúdez.
United to make strength
The marchers are more united than ever. They are promoting pressure measures, like the one they did in the European Cup, all demonstrating before the tests. “We all have to work together. Alejandro Blanco, from the COE, stated that the march must be protected, since we can get results. We are going to talk to him, who is a liaison with Samaranch Junior, vice president of the IOC”, says Álvaro Martín, European champion of 20, who does not resign himself to seeing how his teammates in the background are in an extreme situation. «When they eliminated the 50 kilometers, they already left the most veteran without options because they can no longer be so fast. We accept 35, but it is not the same, “López ends by saying.