A few years ago I started running and I was very interested in athletics. I met several professional runners, even some personally, and I was surprised to see that the best Spanish runners, including the Olympians, they have to juggle to make ends meet.
"This afternoon I have to take care of my daughter and maybe I can't go out to train until my wife arrives from work," one of them said in a documentary. And if you do not play professional football or are a gold medal, you have a hard time.
Now add that you are a woman, that your sport is a minority and that you become pregnant. It is what happened to White Manchón, that They ended up getting pregnant and, poetic justice, returned to be world champion.
In an exceptional report in The Objective, Blanca says that at the time she announced that she was pregnant, her sponsors: Nike, Opel Y EmasesaThey turned their backs on him.
He told them he was pregnant
As he explains, he warned them that he was going to have a child, Noah, but she didn't want to retire. Had been five times Windsurf world champion and he had no intention of quitting, so his motherhood was going to be just a small break in his career.
Referring to Nike, says that despite having a contract, they disappeared. They began to give him long, not to answer his messages, and three days before giving birth she gave them an ultimatum to know what to expect. There, finally, they put the cards on the table and told him that they were no longer going to sponsor her because the sport she practiced no longer fit, apparently, with the brand.
There he confirmed what he already knew, that the reality of elite athletes is that, if you live in Spain, you are a woman and athlete and you get pregnant, "you are finished".
He even compares the treatment given to young athletes: while in the US The young people who do sports are very taken into account in the educational centers and universities, in their institute they suspended Physical Education because they could not attend classes because they went to the Olympic Games.
And came back to win
I had no choice: win or win. Seven months after her child was born, Blanca returned to compete, and above in a mode in which she had never participated: raceboard.
She had to pay for the trip, the stay and even the subscription, and went with her parents and a borrowed table and candle. A board and a candle that came the day before the competition and did not know very well how to ride, for being different from the one she used to use in her category.
Without a coach, without sponsors, as if we were you or I with a table to compete (with the difference that she is a champion), she stood there willing to do her best, but aware that it was only worth one result: win.
If I wanted to have a new sponsor, I had to be the first. And he gave everything, even against a rival who was better prepared on paper, but did not have that urgency and that need to give much more than you have. They say that African runners are so good because, among other things, they have an urgent need to take advantage of what may be their only chance to get something for themselves and their families. Winning can open the doors of a better life for yours, and that is why they do their best and impossible to achieve it. Well, Blanca, that day, I had to win because it was his chance to continue his sports career again.
And he got it. Won.
And then he returned the candle and the board to its owner.
An incredible story
He went out in the photos with his son Noah, and his deed, only seven months after being a mother, began to appear in the media. His story came to a cosmetic brand called Spanish Institute who decided to support his career, and then came Panasonic.
Thanks to this, Blanca will travel to the World Cup in Japan and the Olympic Games in 2020, where she will compete in the modality of her whole life, while continuing to train hard and try to combine her sport, her motherhood and her family, which is not a small thing. in this country that takes so little care of its citizens and athletes.
Come on Blanca!
Photos | The Objective
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