Alberto Ginés already knows what the game is about | Paris 2024 Olympic Games

The gold of Tokyo will be in Paris. The climber Alberto Ginés qualified yesterday, in the Budapest pre-Olympic, for this summer’s Games in the French capital. There he will defend the medal that he won three years ago, when he was only 18, in those pandemic championships, the first gold in history in a sport that was making its debut in the Olympic program. It was a boom for which he was not prepared. That August 5, 2021 changed his life.

“It was crazy. She overwhelmed me. He wasn’t used to that. I was just a kid from Cáceres who was sometimes interviewed by a climbing magazine and who sent the article to his family. And suddenly… gold, fame, interviews at all hours, awards, galas and everyone telling me how good I was. I even had a thing for the medal because I had to carry it with me everywhere, in a fanny pack, everyone wanted to see it, touch it. Thank goodness I had people who put my feet on the ground, who gave me a reality check and told me: ‘Alberto, that’s not how things are, don’t become stupid.’ “Now I know what the game is about.” Sitting on a mat next to a climbing wall built on the fourth floor of a building in the CAR of Sant Cugat, in Barcelona, ​​Ginés relives those months in the hurricane and reviews his trip: from Cáceres to Tokyo and from Tokyo to Paris.

Many hours in the van. Alberto had inherited his father’s passion for walls. While his sister went to the conservatory for violin classes, he, bored of waiting, practiced artistic gymnastics and climbing. He was never particularly interested in football, although today he shares his father’s love for Athletic. So the family hit the road on weekends in search of some vertical adventure. With almost no rock in Extremadura, on the map they surrounded Setúbal first, then La Muela, in Cádiz, from there to Cuenca and finally to Catalonia. The challenges became increasingly difficult as the boy progressed upwards.

The hobby ended up becoming something more serious. He was mentored by David Macià, his coach until today, who has forged the champion. And in September 2018 he opened the door of the CAR in Sant Cugat. He lived there until last summer, when he moved to a nearby apartment. “I felt the need to go out, have my environment, be on my side and for my parents to come see me at my house,” says Ginés. In his refuge he cooks (pasta, rice and meat), he feeds his recent passion for reading and disconnects with video games.

In the climbing wall he hangs for about four hours a day. Macià instructs him in the block and difficulty modalities, in which the man from Cáceres will compete in Paris in a single exercise. And Olympic climbing is still an evolving being. In Tokyo, these two tests were combined with the speed test in a single combination; In France they have been divided into two, and Ginés has ruled out the latter; and in Los Angeles 2028 it is planned that the three specialties will fly each on their own, the format of traditional competitions. Ginés stands out in difficulty, the challenge of ascending a 15-meter wall scored from bottom to top and from lowest to highest. The more difficulties he overcomes, the more points.

“It is a balance between the body and the mind,” says the young man about his work. He does not touch weights, but apart from the climbing wall he cultivates flexibility, always looking for a balance between weighing little to gain weight and not lose muscle. Aware of the problems of eating disorders that sometimes accompany his sport, he prefers not to say what the scale shows. He does confess the size he wears: a 43 and a half in sneakers, but up to four sizes smaller in the climbing shoes with which he clings to the wall. He also refines his emotional control with a psychologist.

Unlike rock climbing, which is more playful, in sports climbing everything has to fit at the exact moment. “On rock I climb out of season, from October to January, with friends, as a hobby. I like it, I enjoy it to be calm, but you can go back there whenever you want if one day things don’t go well for you. In competition it is here and now. I am a competitor. I love that adrenaline,” says Ginés.

That 18-year-old boy from Tokyo is aiming for Paris with other things. “The biggest change was that I was able to start climbing for a living. Before they paid me a little, I wouldn’t have been able to afford a flat,” he says. The gold also served to raise our voices and demand decent facilities like those of Sant Cugat: “We have had to complain a lot, more than I would have liked, I have been a pain. Almost three years after the gold, we have a good facility where we can do, for example, a mock competition. Now we are in the same conditions as the others.” With these tools he secured his ticket for the Games yesterday in a pre-Olympic in Budapest in which he went first to the final, ahead of rock references such as the German Alex Megos and the Czech Adam Ondra. Despite not shining especially since Tokyo, today it seems that he will arrive in Paris in top form.

The gold that was traveling in his fanny pack is kept by his parents at home. It no longer weighs on Alberto, nor does it burden him. He is still a very young athlete, but now he is the one in control.

You can follow The USA Print in Facebook and xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.

_