The Spanish women’s team is showing itself with enthusiasm as a driving force

The seventeen players of the Spanish women’s basketball team that will begin preparing for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with guests Awa Fam and Iyana Martín, were presented in Madrid at an event attended by José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, president of Higher Sports. Council (CSD), Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), Elisa Aguilar, president of the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB) and María Luisa Martínez Gistau, Director of communication and institutional relations at CaixaBank.

“Spanish women’s basketball is coming out and flying again. I am sure that in the coming years, and I hope that in the coming weeks, you give us great joy. It is a new generation that drinks from that memory of the once rooted and powerful school. I hope you go very far in Paris,” said Rodríguez Uribes, who highlighted “being passionate about basketball.”

In addition, he defended the importance of the legacy: “This spring is having an enormous symbolic value for Spanish basketball. A few days ago we presented the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Sports Merit at the Moncloa Palace to Laia Palau and we paid tribute to the Spanish Olympic runner-up team in Los Angeles when forty years passed since that victory, their fighting spirit and their winning mentality passed on to us all as an important legacy and a sign. . “

Blanco indicated: “We are on the eve of the Games and I think we will overcome Barcelona,​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ . We face a big challenge, your challenge. I don’t know what the result will be, but I know that this team will defend Spain and fight hard for Spain.”

“We have everything to get to Paris and once again women’s basketball is the admiration of the whole world, the great pride of all Spaniards who love sport and through this we want to defend this great country that is Spain,” he said at the event, which was held at Caixabank’s ‘all in one’ center.

Elisa Aguilar, president of the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB), pointed out: “They will wear the Spanish shirt in different tournaments, but the most important is when that ball is in the air in Lille because that will mean the Olympic flame.” will be active “This team will have the opportunity to represent Spanish basketball and show the world why we are in the best places in the classification as we have been for many years.”

“You will go to Paris for the Pre-Olympic qualification and the successes after the silver medal in the Eurobasket last year will continue. This revival is the best display of pride and courage of the players to fight the don’t believe in our possibilities,” he added.

Before, some players and the coach talked. Silvia Domínguez stated: “We came from European runners-up with the hope of being in the Games. It’s about making a strategic plan, building and fulfilling for the goals we set for ourselves. Now we start a long journey, there is time to prepare. With great enthusiasm, with common sacrifice and trying to convey the values ​​that are with us”.

Alba Torrens expressed: “I am grateful to be part of and continue to be part of this team. Being in the national team is always special and I am happy to continue to feel the excitement. Excitement is the engine that drives us and after so many year I continue to feel “The nerves and excitement about this preparation for a challenge like the Games is the best thing I’ve ever felt.”

“If I speak from what I have experienced in these years I will stick to the keys like the commitment to the team, like the responsibility to be here, like the talent at work and dedication. And how much fun we did, we have to enjoy it and do it together.

Furthermore, Laura Gil said that it was “a privilege” to participate in the Games and that the team “always believes and always fights for the highest”; Queralt Casas that “it’s always exciting to be in the national team, but the Games are any athlete’s dream”; and María Conde that “Olympic Games is a very big word” and what is important is the path that will lead them to them. The latter two also regretted the absence due to Raquel Carrera’s injury when asked about her.

The coach, Miguel Méndez, said: “We all have an important job left to create a group that will lead us to compete. We will decide who is yes and who is not and this is the hardest part of our job . We are paid to make decisions and we will make them”.

“We don’t do a lot of calculations. First, prepare a team that can compete in any situation against three rivals with very different styles, and try in that group that I have in mind to have players in all profiles. The first goal is to qualify in Lille to compete in Paris,” he added.

For her part, María Luisa Martínez Gistau pointed out that “from CaixaBank we convey our unconditional support to accompany you on this path to Paris. For many years you have shown us everything that can be achieve through effort, passion, enthusiasm and unity. We have always felt close as athletes, as women, as pioneers and as part of a team capable of representing and exciting an entire country.”