WEIGHTPROFILING Lydia: “I competed knowing that I could never be a champion”

Lydia Valentín (Camponaraya, León, 38 years old) opens the doors of the weightlifting room at the Madrid High Performance Center to AS. A place that he refuses to leave, and where he continues to go to train even though his stage is no longer the competition stage. Four Games. Gold in London 2012, silver in Beijing 2008 and bronze in Rio 2016, although he could not receive the first two medals on the podium and they came much later., when it was proven that his rivals were doped. Four world medals in total Olympic (two gold). European Champion. And, above all, an example of cleanliness.

-How many hours have you been able to spend in this room?

-Ugh! Many behind a dream, because everything was created here. Projects, objectives, very hard training…

-What was it like the first time you came in?

-When I arrived at the CAR we trained in another pavilion, but I hallucinated. There were all the references, like Estefanía Juan or Santiago Martínez, that I saw in the Spanish championships. People who lifted a lot and who had already been to the Olympic Games. I was freaking out!

-I think he told his mother when he was 13 years old ‘buy a big suitcase because I’m going to Madrid.’ She was quite clear…

-Yes, I started when I was 11 and at 13 I was already asking him for it. ‘To Madrid to what, 400 kilometers away? You have a lot of birds in your head,’ he replied. But I was already very clear. My coach, Isaac Álvarez, always insisted that I continue training, that I was very good, that I would reach the Spanish championships. And everything he told me, I believed. So I went for my mother (smiles).

-He had experienced the Barcelona Games on TV and that thing about the five rings dazzled him. She saw the place he wanted to get to.

-It was small, but I remember seeing them and the general Olympic atmosphere. Cobi (the mascot), meetings to watch sports… I liked it so much that I decided to be in one.

-What weightlifting did you encounter when you started?

-A small sport, but in which there were references. Estefanía (Juan), Mónica Carrió and Josefa Pérez who went to Sydney 2000, Gema Peris who had competed in Athens 2004, junior world champions… There was not, however, the showcase that I have been able to offer. It was less media. Now, it is also known more for CrossFit.

-Do you remember your first international outing?

-Clear! To the European Under-16 Championship in Austria. I arrived from Camponaraya to Madrid to get on a plane for the first time. I was super nervous, more about the trip than the competition. But it was a success because I won the gold, although I came fifth or sixth by mark.

-Being a traditional sport in Eastern countries, you will have visited very strange places…

-Yes, yes, but I haven’t been able to go sightseeing. At the end you see the sports center and the hotel. It doesn’t matter, because you’re going what you’re going to do. In 2011 the World Cups were at Disneyland Paris and I didn’t go out!

-When did the image of Hello Kitty and the pink ribbon in her hair appear on your belt?

-I grew up with two sisters and my mother bought us Hello Kitty things and the patch that I put on my belt was given to me by one of them and I stuck it on for luck, as a pet. And there it stayed very attached, accompanying me for years. And the wristbands and the pink ribbon were a bit by chance, but in the end I created an image in a sport, in quotes, so brutal, of strength.

-Did you know that you were competing against rivals who were doped?

-Absolutely yes.

-And how can you continue competing with that?

-I knew I was never going to be world champion. For that, she had to do the same tricks. And I came from a country where weightlifting does not move masses and was done cleanly. There were Russia, Belarus… who played in another league. Countries, athletes, entire federations that fell. And in the end, even the International Federation had a corrupt president.

-The whole system was rotten…

-But I couldn’t do anything. I left London 2012 crying (she was fourth and subsequent reanalysis discovered that the Kazakh Pobodebova, the Russian Zabolotnaya and the Belarusian Kulesha doped) when I saw those who were on the podium. She could only cross her fingers that they would fall. But should I leave the sport? Let them go!

-He wanted to receive new medals, not the ones that had to be returned to those who earned them illegally…

-They didn’t want to return them either! But yes, I preferred that they were not handled, with the ‘vibe’ of a dirty sport.

-And how much money have the cheaters made you lose?

-Thanks to Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, I was later able to receive all the money that corresponded to me in prizes and the subsequent scholarship. It is true that sponsorships could have escaped and the way of training with fewer resources was not the same during two Olympic cycles. But that’s how I managed to get to Rio and win a medal, and this one I did receive on the podium.

-Like David Cal did in canoeing, you have removed the fear of your colleagues from competing without complexes. Do you see it like that?

-One of the things I like to feel the most is that, thanks to my example, now in Spain weightlifters who are greats like Marcos Ruiz, Josué Brachi or David Sánchez have seen that it is possible. Apart from the fact that their workouts are very ‘heavies’, of course.

-Some girl must have approached you and told you that she wants to be like you…

-Of course, of course! And the mothers, who tell me that seeing me they stay calm. My mother thought she was going to turn me into a boy!

-You have been fighting a hip injury since the Tokyo Games, in which you already competed handicapped in 2021. What has that process been like?

-Complicated. Especially 2021, because I was injured in March and the Games were in the summer. And all because I was in a different category, which was not mine because I could not attend the Europeans. I gained weight and my hips cracked. Tests, infiltrations… In June I didn’t know if I would be able to attend when I was coming off my best Olympic cycle. She had been world, European and Mediterranean Games champion. In Tokyo they had to infiltrate me simply to go out on stage and say that I had been to my fourth Games. But there’s no point in regretting it, even though that made it worse and I’m still recovering to this day.

-But I wanted to compete in Paris 2024, right?

-Yes, last year I saw it as feasible to qualify. But I felt that the hip was not the way I wanted. It was very difficult for me to make the gestures. I convinced myself that I was not okay and that I should not suffer what I suffered in Tokyo. So I decided to say goodbye to high performance. I would get out of bed, step and feel pain. I was lame. There were times when I was impeded.

-I could have been the standard bearer there…

-Surely, but I don’t like to think about it. No problem. Someone else will do it super well.

-On the day of your farewell, September 21 at the Spanish Olympic Committee, you were the calmest.

-Yeah. It was published that I would not compete in the World Cups and people wrote to me with regret. They weren’t feeling what I was feeling. And I wanted it to be a small event, four people to leave thanking me and reflecting: ‘Am I going to leave sad for not having competed in a fifth Games?’. You have to put things in perspective. I already had everything in my sport. I just want to enjoy life and recover. After what I have suffered, I leave happy.

-Where is Lydia directing her steps?

-I think I have a lot to contribute to weightlifting and there is a project aimed at offering seminars and ‘master classes’ on a tour.

-Don’t you see yourself as a coach in this CAR room?

-No no! It would be like Groundhog Day. I’ve been here since I was 15, and I also have no vocation.

-And does CrossFit motivate you?

-Not for the moment.

-There is a lot of talk about the fact that there are few women in sports management. Would you dare to take the step?

-I don’t see it in the short term either, but you never know in the future.

-And do you watch a lot of sport now?

-Yes, but above all I practice it. Many leave it radically when they retire, but I didn’t want to change my identity or my life so much. I have very similar habits. I like to feel like an athlete.