Moreno, the gold under the Soviet influence of the nocturnal pistard

the path of Joseph Manuel Moreno (Chiclana de la Frontera, 05-07-1969) towards gold on the track cycling in kilometers against the clock in Barcelona ’92 was a hoax, a violation of logic. Or anyone would say this if someone saw how much sleep a man who trained 9 hours a day, called the “rest day” ride. 100 miles every Sunday and he exploded 58,000 kilometers on a bicycle for 20 months.

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“I only slept for three or four hours, I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t need to. And yes, the training was so hard, the next day I woke up perfectly. My classmates stayed fried but I stayed awake reading magazines and comics and eating canes, ‘the man with the pipe’ they called me. And I drank Coca-Cola at night because, after all, I didn’t sleep. When someone ‘rarely’ sleeps, they put him in my room and then remove the nonsense and he can sleep with anyone, ”said Moreno, as if nothing had happened, until now with a strange perspective on sleep at 53 years old. “No, no, now I sleep better”, insure. “Probably about four and a half hours …”, said the man from Cádiz, now a cycling coach for both road and track on the team Manuela Foundation.

But the sheets didn’t stick with Moreno and he set the alarm clock of the Spanish medal table in time in short but intense minutes in kilometers against the clock where he unleashed all his rage. The most intense minute of his life. 63 seconds of suffering for 30 years of happiness. The first metal in the wood of Horta velodrome and most important of all to alleviate the anticipation of enthusiastic but impatient Spanish fans after two days of Games and no badges. And with the spice Olympic Record, not moving from Mexico ’68: 1: 03.34. He, who does not care, of the clock, still has that hour and time engraved today. 27th of July. World champion in 1991, he was expected on the podium. And he, super punctual.

“We had everything calculed, what rhythms to take at all times, we had trained him a lot. I improved and on the last lap and half, which took time, we pushed. We know that more or less from the second 38 is when the lactic acid My legs will be crystal clear and enduring that suffering can give me a medal. I have a lot of pressure but I know how to isolate myself. Over time you realize more of the merit it has “, explains José Manuel Moreno, who every July 27 celebrates the anniversary of the medal with a barbecue like the ones he couldn’t do when he was a young runner, ”although with the training we did you could eat. 10 flans that you do not gain weight ”.

Night bird, Cadiz, in the same way that he delayed his rest, his departure was made to wait. until the sun fell asleep. “We had to start at 7:00 pm and we made it by 9:45 pm because the track was wet, it was just that we didn’t plan. It was like I was five hours warming up in the box”, recalls the runner, who was accompanied by the Australian on the podium. Shane Kellysilver with 1: 04.29 and the American Erin Hartwellbronze with 1: 04.75.

The transgressor, José Manuel Moreno also broke away from that first Olympic metal and followed the aesthetic and physiological canons of the Spanish cyclist at the time just as Miguel Indurain did on the road. ‘Ratón de Chiclana’ is muscular and plump his 1.80 and his 77 kilos, against the stylized archetype of the classic climber.

Joseph Manuel Moreno

Palmares

1

Gold JJ.OO. Barcelona ’92

two

World Gold Stuttgart ’91

3

Silver European Split ’90 (Omnium sprint)

He remembered that, most of all he had already done it William Timoner between the 50s and 60s there were six world golds in the oval, which could also be won when the road was sloped and not just when it was steep. Moreno revived a depressed track cycling, without podiums at world championships between 1978 and 1991, even in Barcelona in 1984 where the Horta Velodrome, the only facility that remained open apart from the Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremony. That night July 25 he was certainly the only athlete of those in Barcelona to train while others parked.

They are commands from Aleksandr Nietzigorostev, the octogenarian but fast and strict Soviet coach who led the track team’s Olympic preparation. He died just five months after Barcelona ’92 but as his last service he programmed with Moreno the first medal in Spain in the way he had full control over everything. “Alexander has no left hand and he ‘crushed’ everything in the Federation, He opened the track for us yes or yes because he had to take a test. And if we had to go to a competition, for example, to Copenhagen, and the Federation denied it, they always said the same thing: “No problem, if Moreno doesn’t fight, you sign and Moreno doesn’t win,” he joked. by Moreno, imitating Spanish.and the Russian accent of his technician.

“Alexander wanted us to sleep at 10 at night and one day I was at the hotel reception at 11 and he saw me. He was hysterical and woke everyone up, as well Cortez Elvira (Secretary of State for Sports at the time), but then he understood that it was difficult for me to sleep “, the pistard woke up. In Nietzigorostev, ‘the guy with the pipes’ learned that relative to the rest -160 km. the best day of the week and a day of total rest throughout the year – and that disease doesn’t exist. Never.

“In 1991, a month and a half before the World Cup (which he won), I broke my collarbone but I continued training. At a concentration that makes uphill series, the physio, Toni Cerda, held me as I climbed so that my collarbone would not ache. And a month before Barcelona a woman ran into me and left my patellar tendon more affected. But it’s normal to train and compete to be injured, that’s wild. Throughout my career I took breaks 36 bones and I suffered 5 shakes ”quite naturally José Manuel Moreno said.

Nietzigorostev had programmed something like a five-year plan with his student and it had to be carried out no matter what. “Alexander told you that with this load of training you would take that long and it was accomplished. I controlled everything, it was incredible. “ Moreno admits, still surprised.

What escaped the control of the Soviet coach was the party surrounding the first Spanish medal. “Tomorrow I have to compete in speed, where I also have a clear choice for a medal. But I have to attend to the media, Samaranch He told me that it was very important for the country and at two in the morning he was talking to Olga Viza and Matías Prats, so I arrived at the Olympic village around 3:15, had dinner right away and got up at 6. I was tired body, where I got a diploma. Alexandre didn’t like it, but he had to comply ”, said the man from Chiclana, who resigned himself in a riot in Seoul ’88 when he competed by technical decision on speed and not on time trial. of kilometers, of which The Soviets were Olympic champions Alexander Kyrichenkothat he lost in the European Cup in San Sebastian that year.

Pistard retired at age 31 after failing to go Sydney ’00. “Politics comes in everywhere and the coach at that time was someone from Chiclana who left me because of some personal quarrel,” Moreno said. However, in a eccentricity more than the unique personality of the chiclanero, the Barcelona ’92 Olympic champion decided to stay in Tokyo ’20 after two decades retiring from the elite, where he ran two years with the team Kelme on the road (1994 and 1995).

“In 46 years (2015) I gave of myself With my son a few electric pedals and marked 2,100 watts, the power that drove the cyclists of choice, which is where I decided to go to Tokyo. But one day while doing squats I experienced a bilateral impingement of two vertebrae and my back was severely affected. The doctor told me to check my ID, “Moreno said. It was madness not far away when another athlete from 1969 who was in Barcelona ’92, Chuso Garcia Bragadocompeted in Tokyo at the age of 51 in what was his eighth and final Games.

Gold Moreno also opened a ban for track cycling metals with medals in the following Games. Joan Llaneras, Jose Antonio Escuredo, Sergi Escobar and company, although since Beijing ’08 Spain has been orphaned with oval Olympic medals. That night, the owl and the young strong rebel rebelled against logic that seemed to want to deceive everyone into his particular concept of rest and his insensitivity to injuries only pretended and was able to reveal a fact: Spain is fed up with medals.

The pistard, endless anecdote

The day Moreno ‘escaped’ from the Civil Guard: “I put the car on the highway at full speed”

As a relatively indifferent man of the clock that he is, José Manuel Moreno is relaxing at home in the morning of just not any day. Soon he was in a hurry and sad.

“I was invited to collect the medal of Sports Merit and I thought I would have to take a plane to Jerez Airport (only 40 km from Chiclana). I look at the ticket, and instead of leaving Jerez, it leaves Seville, which is 150 km away. Enter the highway with Toledo chair that they gave me the medal for everything I gave and the Guardia Sibil stopped me and I explained to them. They let me continue and when I got to Seville I saw the Expo caravan and I walked on hard shoulders until Guwardiya Sibil I was stopped again. They told me that, despite the fact that they let me go on, I couldn’t do the hard shoulder. Eventually, I circled them and they took me to the airport. They treated me very well and I arrived on time ”, recalled the pistard.

Years later, initially after his retirement, he was the size the one he played with. “That year, I started moving from fair to fair because I hadn’t done it until then and I ate and gained a few extra kilos. When my son was born (2000) I went to the pharmacy to weigh him and I also weighed myself. I thought it was a hidden camera because it weighed 94 kilos (when I competed I weighed 77) and the one in my house was 82-83. and this is because he was hooked “, Moreno explained between laughs.