Being born and raised in Chicago made me tougher. It made me believe that I can do anything
Shani Davis
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Once, in 2006, I went to cover the Turin Winter Games. From my base in the journalists’ village, I was able to go to San Sicario, to contemplate María José Rienda. And I went to Palasport, to watch ice hockey. And to the Palavela, to venerate the wonderful Evgeni Plushenko, tsar of figure skating.
And every time I had a free moment, I looked out at Oval Lingotto, home of ice speed skating.
There, I was enraptured by those formidable athletes, those Dutch who fought with the American Shani Davis, a rare bird, a black man snatching their golds. I watched them glide across the ice, leaning forward, extending their arms and then drawing them back, almost flying over the 400m ring (the perimeter of an athletics track), and she asked me:
–Will what these phenomena do be painful, skating at that speed (60 km/h), when it appears to be something simple and graceful?
I ask Nil Llop (21):
–Is what you do painful?
Nil Llop has marble legs and opens his eyes, brushes his hair, takes a breath and answers me:
-What do you think?
–I think so, but you tell me.
–I ended up getting lost, especially in the 1,000m (a little less than 1m10s); in the 500m, not so much (below 35s). It’s all very dizzying, you know? When I am in the race, immersed in strength and drive, I am barely able to look at the splits that Sandra (Sandra Gómez, her coach at the Patí Cobra Club in El Prat) shows me and shouts at me. When I reach the finish line, I feel like I’m going to faint. I take off my aerodynamic hat, unzip my jersey, get a little bit of air… I want to throw myself on the ice, grab a bucket and vomit inside. I shouldn’t do it, I shouldn’t throw myself on the ice, but many times it’s unavoidable. I spend several days with cough and painful breathing.
–And do you like it?
-Of course,
–And in the moments before departure, don’t you feel fear or vertigo at what is coming your way?
–Of course I have insecurities! I work on them with the psychologist. I’m worried about the sharpness, if it will be enough to take the curve well. We do daily rituals to maintain a constant pulse, we try to interpret the competition as a training test, not as something special. I shouldn’t ball up thinking: ‘Look at his level, I won’t be able to handle him.’ I just have to ask myself that things go as the training goes.
–And how do you train?
–Travelling a lot. In our country there is hardly any ice.
These days, Nil Llop is in Salt Lake City. There is ice there.
(…)
If he can travel, train and compete abroad, he does it because he is a rare bird (like the black Shani Davis), a Top 10 in the World Cup. This is how the scholarships come to him: the Spanish Ice Federation helps him and also the Podium scholarships from Telefónica. The aid covers the concentrations and the material.
When in Spain, Nil Llop eats and lifts weights at the Blume residence. When she finishes the ice season and switches to roller skating, she trains at the Sant Boi cycling park or at the Estruch oval, in El Prat, where she lives, where his story began, who was going to do it? say.
(In a few months, El Prat will open a new skatedrome, this one already 200m in perimeter, a regulatory measure, not like the 150m of the oval Estruch).
–And where do you come from?
–My sisters (Ariel, her twin, and Hannah, two years younger) roller skated at the sports center. I guess it was my mother, Silvia, who had also skated. I played soccer with friends, I was four years old. One day I ran away from training, I wanted to skate with them. I haven’t gotten off my skates anymore.
–And the ice?
–I wanted to be an Olympian. The wheels are not. In 2010 we started with the short track on the Barça ice rink. The track was of a discreet level, but it was enough. Turns out I was good, and I got to see it when we moved to the big oval.
(In the lower categories, Nil Llop achieved European golds; today, he can be seen skating at the Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Games in 2026).
