The Orense sailor Támara Echegoyen and the Mallorcan canoeist Marcus Cooper will be the flag bearers of the Spanish delegation at the Paris Games this summer and will take over from another magnificent pair of athletes, Mireia Belmonte and Saúl Craviotto, who carried the national flag at the opening of the Tokyo 2020 Games, named as such despite the fact that they were held in 2021 due to the covid 19 pandemic. The opening ceremony of these Paris 2024 Games, scheduled for Friday 26 July, will bring together all the elements of the monumental grandeur that Emmauel Macron, President of the Republic, intends to give to these Games. For the first time in Olympic history, the flag parade will be an aquatic procession. The flotilla of nations will descend the River Seine from the Pont d’Austerlitz, pass by Notre Dame, and after sliding under nine bridges will disperse in front of the Place du Trocadero, in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Marcus Cooper Walz told Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, and the leader almost levitated on the chair when he heard what sounded like an oath. “My challenge,” declared the canoeist, “is to win two medals in the Games and be the person who raises the Spanish flag as high as possible, so that there is no other flag higher in Paris!” A year and a half later, the COE assembly has resolved that Cooper himself and Támara Echegoyen will be the couple of flag bearers to represent the Spanish delegation during the opening ceremony of the Games. The basketball federation wanted the flag bearer to be Rudy Fernández, who, if Spain qualifies for the Games through next week’s pre-Olympic, will become the only basketball player in history in six Olympic events. The COE, however, has not waited until it has that possibility.
Marcus Cooper (Oxford, 29 years old), a blonde with marvelous arms who looks like the son of Odin, is actually the son of a British father and a German mother, and was also born in the United Kingdom. But he is and feels Spanish. With rage, as he demonstrated when he won his first Olympic gold in the unexpected individual kayak final in Rio after an initial spill that took the breath away of all the contestants in the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon. His family, linked to Mallorca for several generations, settled on the island when he didn’t even know how to walk. “I don’t even remember England,” repeats the athlete whose election represents a recognition of canoeing as the most decisive Spanish sport in the last three Olympics, after the paddlers accumulated seven medals between Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
If the election of Cooper, gold in Rio 2016, in the K1 1000m event, and silver in Tokyo 2020, in K4 500m, responds to the need to honor the best team of canoeists in the history of Spain, the designation of Támara Echegoyen awards the sailing team, the most successful of the Spanish delegation.
Támara Echegoyen (Orense, 40 years old) will take the baton from Belmonte and will become the oldest Spanish flag bearer in the Games after the shooter Julio Castro, who paraded in 1932 at the age of 53. The recognition rewards an outstanding record of achievements and a long career of the Galician sailor. Echegoyen won gold at the 2012 London Games in the Eliott 6m class along with Sofía Toro and Ángela Pumariega, and in the following two Olympic events she touched the podium with two fourth places in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021, on both occasions already in the class 49er FX. In that category she has been world champion in 2016 and 2020, and in that boat she will seek to return to the podium at the Paris Games alongside Paula Barceló.
The option of Támara Echegoyen prevailed over that of Carolina Marín (badminton) and Fátima Gálvez (shooting) by presenting a slightly better Olympic record than them, and after the resignation of the canoeist Maialen Chourraut, since she competes the day after the ceremony opening. The Galician sailor will jump into the water two days after the official opening of the Games, and she will do so in Marseille, 800 kilometers from Paris. It will be her fourth Olympic participation, the finishing touch to a resume that exhibits her ability to adapt: she is the first Spaniard to compete in the sailing round the world, in 2017 with the Mapfre team, and after the Games she will join the Spanish women’s team in the Copa del América held in Barcelona.
The election of Echegoyen also rewards the enormous weight of sailing in the Spanish harvest of medals at the Games. It is the most productive Olympic discipline, with 21 medals, 20 for canoeing and 16 for athletics and cycling. And it is also, by far, the sport that has won the most golds, 13, compared to the five in cycling and canoeing. The Spanish team will arrive in Marseille with the realistic aspiration of getting on the podium in several categories. In front are Jordi Xammar and Nura Brugman, current world champions in the 470 class, and behind them are Diego Botín Florian Trittel, world champions in 49er. Támara Echegoyen and Paula Barceló also row to be at the top.
“We have swept,” Cooper said in 2022, after winning the second successive world gold in the K4 500. For the first time, Spain led the ranking and Germany moved to second place. It was a change of forces that still encourages a team that is known to be a powerhouse in canoeing. Paris is the end point of an adventure that begins by carrying the flag down the Seine River.
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