Mireia Belmonte overshadows La Liga

The league is underway, with its rollercoaster of emotions and controversies (stoppage time in the Málaga-Athletic game was savage, by means of referee Mateu Lahoz), but Mireia Belmonte claimed centre stage with her gold medal in the 1,500m freestyle at the European Championships. Glory for her, glory for our nation and glory for women's sport in Spain. It has been a while now that Mireia Belmonte has been pushing for a place in the collective imagination alongside Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and Amaya Valdemoro as a supreme heroine of Spanish sport. I believe she has now achieved this. After moving on from her disputes with Natació Sabadell, she continues to accumulate medals.

It is a triumph also for swimming, perhaps the last of the great sports to reach a high level of performance in our country. It was not long ago that the successes began in synchronized swimming, a singular and beautiful speciality. And before that, water polo. But in those disciplines that can be described strictly as swimming we were well behind. Now that is not the case. And it is not just Mireia, although it is perhaps her who has been the locomotive, or the figurehead on the prow. Spain is moving up the medal table in Berlin. Spanish fans are discovering new names almost every day at these championships – a triumph for the Federation headed by Fernando Carpena.

Our nation is progressing, and women's sport in Spain is as well. And that is even better. Before, Spain sporadically had solitary heroines who were rowing against the tide, from the distant era of Lilí Álvarez. They had to overcome incredible difficulties. The likes of Mari Paz Corominas and Carmen Valero in the 1960s and 1970s had raw deals. Those that followed fought to scale a brick wall. Now we are witnessing progress in every respect in a universally accelerated movement that has now reached even women's football, the final redoubt to be taken on by our female athletes. Now we can be genuinely proud of a fully developed Spanish sporting panorama.

from Últimas noticias | Diario AS http://ift.tt/1nqdWMS

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