Fernando Díaz del Río Soto from the Canary Islands won the gold medal in technical solo on Monday and became the first world champion of this competition to debut on the program. This is the fourth medal of the Spanish delegation in Fukuoka.
It is also the second gold in the history of Spanish artistic swimming (formerly synchronized), after the one achieved in the 2009 World Cup in Rome by the team in the now-defunct Combo modality. The fourth medal, the one with the highest value, was also the most awaited and this 20-year-old canary took it around his neck, who is burning steps at a gigantic pace and this Monday in the pool of the Fukuoka Congress Center he touched the sky.
He arrived with the best grade, he went out to swim last, but Díaz del Río, ‘Fer’ as he is known in the artistic world, was not intimidated, gave his best, took risks and did not make a mistake.
In fact, he did not suffer any penalties, neither in the preliminary nor in the final. The Spaniard swam energetically with a song by Sam Smith, with arrangements by Salvador Niebla. His confidence was such that it seemed that instead of a World Cup final he was in the CAR pool in Sant Cugat, where Anna Vega and also Gemma Mengual, his coaches, have molded a world champion every day.
Fernando has been dedicated to art for eight years, although only the last three exclusively, because at first he combined it with swimming. The canary began because the discipline merged his two passions: ballet and swimming; and his first steps were taken together with his sister.
He settled in the CAR, began training from Monday to Saturday between six and eight hours a day, and realized that this wanted to be his life. Fernando gave the best of himself after feeling a thousand times supported by his family environment (his parents and his sister) and friendship.
This psychology student has put in many hours to get to the top and admits the importance of mental preparation both in sport and in life. “No matter how healthy you are, I think that a mental difficulty prevents much less than a physical injury,” he repeats as a mantra.
And today he flew even higher. He had won two silver medals in the last European Championship and he knew, although he did not want to verbalize it, that the absence of the favorite, the Italian Giorgio Minisini, would open the doors to gold, but he did not want to believe it.
He felt the heat of his trainer Anna Vega in the access tunnel to the pool. Only he and Anna know about that conversation, the last one before the big moment. Fernando came out with everything, excited and aware, he completed a great exercise and was moved sitting next to his trainer on the white sofa provided by the organization for the moment.
And he heard the note, those 224,555 points that he will never forget. The canary was by far the best in artistic impression (96.2), but also in elements (128.3550) and that the level of difficulty that Anna Vega had arranged for the session was not the highest in the final. On the podium he was accompanied by the American Kenneth Gaudet, with 216.8, and the Kazakh Eduard Kim with 216 points.
This is Spain’s fourth medal in this World Cup in Fukuoka, an unexpected success resulting from the new artistic, mix of strategy, ensuring routines and, above all, not making mistakes.
Fernando’s is added to the bronze of Iris Tió (technical only), to the silver of the mixed technical duo (Emma García and Dennis González) and to the also bronze in the technical duo (Alisa Ozhogina and Iris Tió) when there are still a few tests left with chances of success. Spain, without a doubt, has returned to the top of artistic swimming, after many years of crossing the desert.
