SPANISH SWIMMER STRIKES GOLD IN RIO!

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by Rose Maramba

She made it! She said “lo mas diificil de conseguir es el oro olimpico (the hardest to achieve is the Olympic gold).”  But on 10 August 2016 she’s got it hanging around her neck, glittering as you please. That’s Mireia Belmonte Garcia.

People in Spain think she’s Catalana, meaning she’s from the autonomous region of Catalonia, the best known city of which is of course Barcelona, the capital.

The House of His Majesty the King of Spain tweeted Congrats to Belmonte: “Enhorabuena a Mireia Belmonte por esta gran victoria en Rio 2016. Otra gran alegria para España.”

These days quite a few Spaniards are wary of anyone said to be from Catalonia. It’s the secessionism that roughly half the population of the place are advocating. (The other half think of themselves as Spaniards and there’s no two ways about it. Independence from Spain?  ¡No, señor!)

Well, the blonde and blue-eyed Belmonte is indeed Catalana, having been born in Badalona, a city in the province of Barcelona. But her parents originated from Andalusia and she’s never been anything but a Spaniard.

In the heat of the moment, when she struck gold in the Olympic pool, the euphoric reporter of the Spanish public TV covering the momentous event shouted: “She’s a hundred percent Spanish, born and trained in Spain!”

At that very moment, too, she became the first ever, and so far the only, Spanish female swimmer to become an Olympic champion, winning the gold medal in the women’s 200m butterfly. She won by 3/100 of a second against Australian swimmer Madeline Grove, clocking 2:04.85. She won by a hair’s breadth but who cares, she’s still the winner.

Spain is absolutely jubilant. Just a couple of days or so ago, at the final of the 400m, she finished a disappointing third (Bronze) and there was this unspoken national fear that, thanks to some dark machination of the Fates, that would be the best she could do throughout the Olympics. Now she’s vindicated herself like the real champion of the first water that she is.

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More about  Mireia Belmonte

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  Mireira is honored with a reception at the Baladona City Hall in 2013, Baladona being her birthplace. She won 1 bronze and 2 silver medals at the World Swimming Championship that year.

  A versatile swimmer who specializes in medley, freestyle and butterfly.

• She’s 25. Date of birth: 10 November 1990.
• Since she won two medals (Silver) at the Olympics 2012 in London, the only Spanish swimmer to have done it in one Olympics, she’s considered the best Spanish swimmer in history. She silvered in 200m butterfly and in 800m freestyle. In the same year she bagged the World Sports Award for Best Spanish Athlete.
• In 2013 she received the Royal Order of Sporting Merit from the Spanish government.
• She currently holds five world records in short-course events. Clocking 7:59.34 in the 800 Short Course Medley Freestyle at the FINA (Federation Internationale de Natation Amateur, the world governing body for swimming) World Cup series 2013, she became the first woman ever to break 8:00. This was her first freestyle world record.
• At the World Short Course Championship 2011 in Shanghai, she set the world’s fourth-fastest time in the 400m freestyle.
• Now for romance: Belmonte has a handsome and sexy boyfriend, Javier Herranz, a kayaker on the Spanish Olympic team.

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Featured image by Morenobj (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Morenobj), CC BY-SA3.0
King Felipe’s coat of arms, PD
Baladona reception by the Ayuntament de Baladona. Attribution license.