The sports figures in our country showed off for a long time, all of them committed to the traditional Mundo Deportivo gala, which has been going on for 76 years. Legends such as Javier Sotomayor or Lydia Valentín and current references such as María Pérez, Salma Paralluelo or the professional sections of Barça, all of them paraded along the red carpet before taking the stage of the Palau de Congressos, and happily collected the awards that distinguished them for having been part of the past, for occupying our present and for projecting into the future.
In a performance directed on stage by Edgar Fornós and Cristina López, Cristinini, the organization wanted to offer a space for applause to a range of athletes who, in 2023, announced their retirement: Ona Carbonell (double Olympic medalist in artistic swimming) , Lydia Valentín (triple Olympic medalist in weightlifting) and Joaquín (23 years of professional career as a soccer player) had the opportunity to officially say goodbye to the public that has been admiring them throughout their career, as long as it is prolific in all three cases.
A similar distinction was collected by Cuban Javier Sotomayor, an athletics legend and world high jump record holder for thirty years, when he rose to 2.45m at the Salamanca meeting.
No other athlete, so long later, has managed to fly higher.
Toni Bou, with 34 trial world titles on his resume (17 outdoors and 17 indoors, all of which have been contested from 2007 to 2023), was also applauded for his infinite career, although he remains active.
María Pérez, a walker, double world champion last summer in Budapest, a candidate for gold in the imminent Paris Games, is raging in the news even though the discipline she practices is in danger of extinction. Mundo Deportivo wanted to award the athlete from Granada as the best female athlete of 2023, thus endorsing the present and future of the walker and Spanish athletic walking (last summer, Álvaro Martín also became double world champion in athletic walking).
The truth is that both careers, those of María Pérez and Álvaro Martín in Budapest, had been relatively overshadowed by the triumph of the women’s soccer team in the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and by the controversial and prosecuted piquito of Luis Rubiales to Jenni Hermoso. Among all those episodes, Salma Paralluelo stood out, a leading light in the team of then coach Jorge Vilda. Paralluelo, who had been an athlete before opting for professional soccer, received the award for the sports revelation of 2023, and her teammates, for the best women’s team of the year. Montse Tomé, current coach, collected the award on behalf of the block.
The artistic swimming team led by Mayuko Fujiki, and Robert Lewandowski, top scorer of the season, Marc-André Ter Stegen (goalkeeper with least goals scored), the professional sections of Barça and Nico Laprovittola (base of the Barça League champion) also had their moment. of basketball).
