Sara Perez crossed the finish line with Susana Rodriguez first in Paris. After reaching the final of the Olympic Swimming Games (Athens, 2004), the professional triathlete thus managed to crown the pinnacle of the sport in her first experience with disability, helping Rodríguez win gold in these 2024 Paralympic Games. The report they showed suggests that they had been together their entire lives. However, they have only been training together for a year.
For years, Pérez had considered participating with Rodríguez as his guide, but his sporting career prevented him from doing both. So he decided to continue his thing until he decided a year ago, even though he was excited about the other thing.
“I’ve known Susana for many years,” Pérez says in a conversation with EL ESPAÑOL, “but I prioritized my sports career and bet on myself.” “Last year I volunteered for Spanish Championship and he felt comfortable, so he changed his guide to a year of games with the difficulty that implies.
Despite the rush, they got the gold. The secret to success? “To find a good guide you have to listen both personally and professionally.” Pérez acknowledges that “what they do is extremely difficult, they put their bodies in our hands.” However, he still doesn’t know how to explain what he felt when he crossed the finish line: “No, I imagined it would be so rewarding.”
The melody
Athletes spend many hours with their guides. That is why it is important for Paralympic athletes to choose their companion correctly. Sara assures, after her experience as a guide, that “anyone with half a brain” is capable of doing it. However, it is another thing to do it by giving the sporting level.
“He the sporting level must be higher that of the person you are guiding, because otherwise you cannot speak,” says Perez. “Then, everything that falls under the functions of the guide, anyone with half a brain can do it. I am distracted, with bad reflexes, bad eye coordination, I look straight at the ground… And I have been able to do this job well. “If I can do it, almost anyone can do it.”
Susana and Sara reach the finish line in Paris.
In conversation with EL ESPAÑOL, Pérez explains the importance of the fact that she was also an elite athlete. Off the track, Susana Rodriguez and she spends many hours together. “It also means that I can sympathize with her in stressful situations, under pressure, when doubts arise… In the end we spend 24 hours and it goes beyond sport. We share fears, uncertainties…”
For Perez, it is essential to look for “a guide that brings you personal and professional harmony.”
As for visually impaired athletes, they are the ones who choose them, “because What the guide does affects the outcome“If you look closely, most triathletes have very good cyclists, because it’s about choosing who can give you the most.”
However, in her case, this was not the case. The biggest compatibility problem that Sara and Susana encountered was the bike. But the fact that Perez is a strong swimmer allowed her to “swim at a very comfortable pace and come away with her strength intact.”
The most difficult thing for the couple was to ride a tandem. The two-seater bike is very different, in terms of handling, from those that only have a saddle. In winter, “we were in tandem, we did several three-day concentrations, to swim and compete and this summer we trained a lot together, especially in swimming and in tandem in terms of skill. We used each day to do curves and so on.
Sara and Susana with the tandem.
The secret of gold, for Perez, lay in “swimming”. “It went very well for us because we did a good job before the familiarization. We swam very well because we studied it very well. If you have a person with less knowledge, he could not have as many resources. On the bike, I am not gifted, I was a handicap,” he admits.
hard to understand
The time she spent with Rodríguez made Sara Pérez reflect on how complicated it is for people with disabilities to play sports: “What they do is extremely difficult and they put your body in our hands. “You have to do everything right to get results.”
Perez adds that “you realize that the small normal things seem easy to us or we do not pay attention to them and for them it is a difficulty.” He emphasizes that “she needs to know where she is going to put her feet, the feeling you convey is that. I didn’t want to ride tandem with another person and I told her: ‘you give him huge balls too…’. She said to me: trust yourself, I trust you.
The feelings that the competition generated in Perez are still difficult to express in words “because “This year has not been easy.”: “You change guides, she had to teach me everything, I had to be agile to learn, then she had a fall in Vigo, Susana’s suffering…”.
Susana Rodriguez wins gold in the PTVI women’s final.
Yet everything changed in the race: “Seeing that he turned his head, that you have things in your favor… And then you know that you have run the perfect race. It’s a happiness that you can’t even believe. I wouldn’t know how to explain it.. “I guess it will be similar to the pride and happiness you feel for your brother or son.”
Sara does not see herself as a guide for another athlete. Among other reasons, because he thinks it would be difficult for him to find a Spanish triathlete with whom he would have the same harmony, especially because of his age.
Guide training
THE Spanish Federation of Sports for the Blind He is responsible for coordinating the athletes with their guides on many occasions. For this, the most important and primordial element, as explained Gemma León Díaz, Secretary General of FEDC“It’s being at the level of the athlete who will be helped by it.”
For this reason, when guides come to their homes, they usually give them tests to check that they can reach the level. The second: the adjustment. “They need to know each other, speak a common language, understand each other… Because They have to train together, travel together, share a lot of time… But in the end, the result also depends on whether the guide is at the level of the athlete,” explains León Díaz.
The life of Sara Perez and the 10 other guides who helped Spanish Paralympians win medals
From the FEDC, they assure that support outside of sport It’s not a requirement. But “if they have to take a means of transport, a hotel, be at a gathering…”. “Imagine at the Games, they are together all day, logically.”
Above the two athletes is also the coach, who will be the one to set the guidelines for their work. In no case does the guide replace or make the two compatible.
To facilitate their work, training is also provided to the guides, explains León Díaz: “Sometimes we bring together new people, who practice this sport to a greater or lesser extent. The guides can be people without disabilities, of course, but normally they are people who already practice sports. how to guide a blind person, how to manage them, how to guide them and if they really work, they continue to train together and compete together. Then there are also refresher sessions, for people who are already guides, who may have little experience or need to change athletes.”
The best known is athletics, but there are also guides for triathlon, skiing, swimming, shooting or long-distance running. “There are several sports that require different supervision. on skisFor example, they go separately and the person has to say where they are going; they are not stuck to each other and the communication has to be very fast and very efficient. It is not the same to ride on skis, which go very fast, the mountain one who must guide two, if there are roots, puddles, mud, leaves… The role of the guide in practice is to be as efficient as possible.
As become a guide? “In many ways“There are times when we receive university practices, athletes who sign up as volunteers, people who know us through reports like this and are encouraged. There are many paths,” explains León Díaz.
The general secretary of the FEDC, finally, does not miss a detail: the economic. Although the guides are volunteers, it is the athletes who must assume the costs of their maintenance and their food before the races, hotels, transport… To this must be added the equipment to practice the sport: a Tandem, for example, is more expensive than a bicycle.Aid must be targeted at these specificities. Otherwise, we don’t have a good inclusion.”
