“Sport helps a lot to have a happy and generous attitude towards life. But it is not only this that keeps you in shape, but the interest that you have for that same life”. This is how well Lilí Álvarez spoke, the first Spanish athlete to participate in the Olympic Games, those of Paris 1924 as a tennis player, together with Rosa Torras. And that racket wasn’t Lilí’s favorite sport: she preferred winter ones (she missed the Chamonix Games as a skater due to an injury). On the dirt tracks at Roland Garros she won the doubles in 1929.
After retiring, he also raised the pen with a dozen books and collaborations in the press. She vindicated the role of women in articles and conferences. His attitude was ahead of the times and shocked the men of his time on issues such as marriage for defending “dialogue in the couple” because if not, he said, “we will have dictators who will think they are very macho, but who are not men ”.
Lilí, passed away on July 8, 1998. She was 93 years old.
