In the Olympus of the Spanish pioneers of all time, a long list as unknown as it is silenced by the dominant patriarchy, along with Clara Campoamor, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Rosalía de Castro, Elena Maseras or Federica Montseny (among many others), has installed Carmen Valero: the proper name of Spanish women’s Olympics.
Her last name will not appear in the imagination of the greats of national sport – the Santanas, Martín Bahamontes, Ballesteros, Nieto or Fernández Ochoa – but Carmen Valero (Castelserás, 1955 – Sabadell, 2023) was the first to break the border of presence women in the Olympic Games. In that black and white and stale Spain of the 70s, the dictatorship dying, the athlete from Teruel – later settled in Sabadell – challenged the authorities of the regime, the Church and the federative establishment by running around the athletics tracks in shorts and suspenders. and the paths of cross country to gain a place in the European and world elite.
Valero won 24 Spanish championships in the 70s and 80s: eight cross country championships, two in the 1,500 indoor, and outdoors, three in the 800, seven in the 1,500 and four in the 3,000, in addition to being the Spanish record holder in the 800, the 1,500 and the 3,000. She rose to prominence on the international stage with two world cross country titles in 1976, in Chepstow, and in 1977 in Düsseldorf. Although her great feat for all time was achieving an Olympic ticket to be the first Spanish woman to participate in the Games, those in Montreal in 1976.
It was the best reward for a sports career in which he had to add effort and sacrifice to train persistence and stubbornness to gain a place among men, against all odds. Since she was 15 years old and was the object of insults on the street when she trained in shorts, until, already consolidated by her results, she experienced the disdain and contempt of the Spanish Federation, which excluded her from technical meetings. “They were practically only for the boys, because they told us to do what we could and they sent us away in five minutes,” the athlete explained in an interview in 2019.
A lack of institutional respect that was evident on the eve of their first world title in 1976, in Wales. A Spanish federation member addressed the small group of women participating in the championship:
–You are big-assed and busty. You have no chance to do anything relevant.
It was portrayed. Valero, then only 20 years old, before entering the victorious goal, approached the stands and with his arms on his hips he addressed the director, who, then yes, got on the gold car giving him encouragement.
–So Spanish athletes are big-assed and busty, right? –he snapped at the macho man.
Valero, 68, died yesterday as a result of a stroke suffered last week and which had led him to intensive care, according to the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation.
