Alejandro Blanco: “We must define the sports model in Spain”

Alejandro Blanco summoned special envoys of the sports press to Paris to assess Spain’s role in the 2024 Paris Olympics after the 18 medals won by the Spanish delegation.

The COE president began his presentation by saying “I congratulate the team, the 383 athletes, 190 men and 193 women, who participated and tested. 5-4-9 (gold, silver and bronze) is the result of the achievements that medal, surpassing Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro We must also add the finalists with revealing data: 9 fourth places and 20 fifth places, more than ever, 221 athletes are classified in the top eight, 57% of athletes are among the first eight. I will give them a ’10’ for the effort of all our athletes. I say that Spain’s 22 medals are the most humble of all. , our result is 18 medals, I would give our Olympics a ’10’ because all the athletes gave their all and wanted to compete.”

The president added that “We are here as a team. There are sports that have met expectations and others not yet, but we have to listen to the technical reports. We cannot punish ourselves for improving the results in Tokyo. The more resources the athletes have, the better results we will have. “But we can’t analyze the sport just because of the Olympic Games, let’s analyze the cycle.

The president wants to influence the state of Spanish sport: “We have 22 medals in Barcelona and we always move within this range of 17 and 18, that’s the level we have. We have to take the strategy with the federations and I is the first convinced that the 22 medals are salvageable When we talk about the medal table let’s talk about investment, always about investment, if we compare ourselves to neighboring countries that have more medals, let’s put on the table the money they receive and what Spain receives is the coefficient of investment and result we are higher than them if we only look at the name of the country and the medal table we will not be fair to our sport and our athletes.

Blanco said clearly: “The high competition and responsibility of the sport rests with the CSD (Superior Sports Council), in different countries the government legislates and gives money and controls it, but the Olympic Committee distributes it , this is the case of those with the best performance such as Italy, Germany, Nordic countries, France, Netherlands, Core, Japan…. These countries can plan better, because it does not affect them when there are many changes of ministers, secretary of state, government… The system is what it is. Thanks to the investment of the government and Team España that complements the ADO for the athletes, but to get results is not a year or two long-term and provides resources to federations, more specialized programs that are not the same in team sports as in individual sports and keep moving forward by giving money to federations The more resources, the better but you need to have long term planning, think about it , 2032, having a clear path. Be clear about this in countries with clear sports policies. We need to create a model that is not subject to the variables that the secretary of state may have in the same match or changing the match, the good step is to define the sport in the grassroots, in the high competition, in the society, the brand of Spain is very strong, we have to sit down to redefine everything.”

Blanco does not believe that any athlete was pressured in his prediction to win 22 medals from Barcelona’92: “If an athlete came to the Olympics and felt pressure, they were wrong. The international agencies considered Spain with a standard of 22. What we did by collecting the opinions of the athletes was to encourage us to save the roof.

For the president of the COE “the most important thing is to define the model. The step is to define the model and define what we want from sport, the impact on society, now we are proud of the brand of Spain in sport. In easy said in the medium term, there are countries that have improved a lot because sport is socially fundamental for them the world accepted the resources In the Rio Olympics the government reduced the public subsidy to the federations by 50% and 17 medals awarded and there were statements from a secretary of state who said we reduced the subsidy by 50% and we have got the same medals So the money in euros in 2016 is the money in pesetas that the government received in 1986, we are far from investment of other countries, it is a year thing. After these days we have to consider what we want from the Spanish sport and develop a model. The high competition is the mirror. “We have to define what we want from the sport.”

Regarding the review of the organization of the Paris Olympics, all congratulations: “The organization is excellent, the greatness of the facilities and the large number of people have been extraordinary”

The president did not know all the details about the Baya artistic swimming team’s rental of the basement because the coach decided to leave the Olympic Village so as not to affect the two opinions until he had more information: “Artistic swimming “Sorry , the CSD said, they don’t know anything, let me know yesterday home.”

Finally, he explained that “May Carolina Marín feel the love of everyone, we will give Carolina Marín international recognition in the month of November,