Natalia Muñoz, a young girl who, although she is from Jerez and Camarón is from San Fernando, when she is flamenco she is the child of the island, her legs tremble a little when the King, so imposing, passes in front of her, and her foot sinks into the thick carpet of the palace, and, on a podium strategically placed in front of a giant mirror in which a marble bust of her great-grandfather, Alfonso XIII, is reflected, in front of a microphone she begins to talk about Olympic values and how great Spain and its Olympic athletes are. Natalia, 15 years old and more on Instagram, 10,000 followers in her community, who from TikTokis one of them, one of the youngest Spanish Olympians, making her debut in skateboardand in Concorde, under the monolith, on Monday he will show off his talent in the street modality.
Felipe and Letizia, the kings of Spain, and he proudly displays the red circle of the Legion of Honour, a French decoration, on his jacket, he explains, are showing off their Olympic enthusiasm. “These Games, we will all be split up as a family trying to be in all the competitions in which there are Spaniards,” he says. “The queen, the princess, the infanta, Queen Sofia… although I don’t know if we will be able to be everywhere.” He knows that the Spanish women’s football team has won in Nantes and that the Guerreras have lost to Brazil, but he has not yet met Natalia Muñoz. Alejandro Blanco, the president of the COE, is quick to respond and introduces her to him, and with her, he and the Queen quickly catch up. They talk to her for a while, wish her luck in the competition, and she, who also trembles at the thought of going down the Seine by barge during the opening parade, can tell him that she would also like to be in Chiclana, on the beach, but that she would not change anything for her Olympic moments.
When she tells it, minutes later, she can’t stop receiving messages on her mobile, so fast do the images fly by. She, so small, is standing on the platform from which the king spoke; he, after hanging out with the cyclist Oier Lazkano, David Barrufet and other handball players of his size and weight, is at a lower level. “I finished fourth year of compulsory secondary education. I started in the courtyard of my house,” she explains. “It’s not about competing with anyone, but about trying to do more and more things with the board.” She stops talking because she is the star of the reception, and the Minister of Education and Sport, Pilar Alegría, also wants to chat with her. “Until recently, the entire team has been concentrated in California, between Los Angeles and San Diego, where the level is tremendous,” explains her coach, Alain Goikoetxea, who is replacing her. However, he believes that the best Spanish player in front of the Obelisk will be another uniquely talented teenager, the Basque Naia Laso, aged 15. “She is still in California. She is special.”
The Kings, the old people who remember that in that room of the Embassy on the exclusive and very warm avenue of George V, which begins in the Champs Elysees between megastores Louis Vuitton, the era where Miguel Indurain would go every July between 1991 and 1995 wearing the yellow jersey of the Tour, forget their memories of the past, return to the present, to the future. “May these only be your first Games,” Felipe VI predicts to Natalia Muñoz, who feels that she will not feel more pressure in the competition again. “I am calm,” says the one who is calm with the voice of Camarón. “I am not going to get overwhelmed.”
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