After finishing her work and winning a bronze medal, Ana Peleteiro announces in Glasgow: “You can all make the headlines: Peleteiro is back.”
You are wrong. No, Ana Peleteiro is not back. No, Ana Peleteiro, who just won the bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships with a jump of 14.75 meters, is not the same one who briefly left athletics two years ago to become a mother.
The gold medal went to the Caribbean Thea Lafond from the 70,000-strong volcanic island of Dominica, a former British colony between Guadeloupe and Martinique, who achieved the best performance of her life at the age of 29 and entered the world championships with 15.01 m, a small club from Athletes over 15 meters (30 of them in history on a list, led by the unattainable 15.74 m of Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas). He reaches it on his second jump, the last one he made. After the victory was certain, he watched Peleteiro's fight from the stands. The young Cuban Leyanis Pérez, 22 years old (14.90 m), huge legs and big favorite, came second.
The 28-year-old Galician jumper's 14.75 m is the second best mark of her life. They earned him his sixth triple jump medal at major international championships. They confirm her as the great personality of Spanish athletics. “I've been saying it for a long time, what happened is that you, like always, don't pay attention to me,” he announced after his third place. “I know exactly what I am, what I am worth. I might work harder than anyone else, I couldn't give more of myself. And I believe that nothing is given away in life. This is the result of great efforts. “They retired me 14 months ago and even more so 20 months ago and today I am back here winning Spain's first medal.”
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It is the first medal for Spanish athletics at a World Indoor Championships in an Olympic year marked by the serious injury of the pentathlete María Vicente, the favorite in her discipline, and the zero start in the 60m hurdles of Asier Martínez, also a medal candidate .
Ana Peleteiro-Compaore, this Sunday during the final in Glasgow.ADAM VAUGHAN (EFE)
Her name is no longer simply Ana Peleteiro, but Ana Peleteiro-Compaoré, since she added the surname of Benjamin, her husband and father of her Lúa, to her official name after the hyphen. A symbol and a proclamation. “I'm not the same, no. I mean, I'm Ana, but this is my team now. I want to have the same name as my daughter, I want to have the same name as my husband, we are a family, we are a team, I liked my father's name, so… My mother, poor thing, is dumped . And he tells me that he didn't say Brión, his last name, before. And I, now, mom, but oh well. It is simply a gesture of affection and love towards my in-laws who, at the end of the day, support me in all this and help us to reconcile because we have a girl, but I also have my stepdaughters and my relatives. Laws are a pillar of my life and it is like a sign of affection and appreciation for them all.”
–But do you feel the same way today? Stronger? Different?
–NO. I'm a different person, so get ready because summer is just around the corner…
In the summer there are the Olympic Games and the European Championships in Rome. It is perhaps the 15 meters, the mark of excellence, the necessary mark to achieve an Olympic medal. “I like arriving as a foreigner. Nobody expected me. I see it in their faces, I like to see the way they look at me, that they think they didn't sleep well today, no. “I like to arrive in disguise,” she says. “But the summer will be very different, people will be training a lot, anything can happen, so I have to keep going and use that as a springboard. “My goal is Paris and that's just another step towards reaching 15 meters, man have to take another step. I'm not there yet. Iván says yes, but I think I still need a little work. The next time I work out I'm tired, I want to give up, I get lazy, I want to eat donuts I shouldn't be eating, I have to remember where I want to be. I will absolutely not eat anything with this brand at the Olympics. So go up from here.”
Ana Peleteiro-Compaore holds the Spanish flag this Sunday after winning bronze at the World Athletics Championships. ADAM VAUGHAN (EFE)
Ana Peleteiro-Compaoré is no longer the young girl who, five years ago, on March 3rd, at the age of just 23, jumped 14.73 m on the same ugly and soulless outdoor track in cold Glasgow, for the first time Spaniard broke record and was named European indoor champion. He had previously won bronze at the 2018 World Indoor Championships, his first major competition under the leadership of Cuban coach Iván Pedroso, and also won bronze at the European Outdoor Championships in Berlin. Then in Tokyo they would take Olympic bronze with a new national record (14.87m) on the great Sunday together with their training partner Yulimar Rojas in Guadalajara (the invincible Venezuelan was missing in Glasgow) and silver on the European indoor track in Torun 21.
“She is the same and she is not the same,” says Pedroso, who hugs her, holds her and cries with her, happily, intensely. “She’s the same and stronger, faster, more mature, less impulsive.”
Peleteiro retains anger and desire, ambition and a character so competitive that it can multiply through great opportunities. He has added a calm that shakes but does not break, the background music of the Clash's Rock the Casbah that sounds when the palm or chest is struck after a scream that breaks the air and draws all attention to itself and thighs and begins devouring the hallway, 16 steps before planting his right foot on the board and moving in the hops, steps and leaps of his triple. And the boom. It was the fifth best jump in a very high and regular series with jumps of 14.67 m and 14.64 m previously, at the best level of his career.
“I knew I loved this track, I knew the audience in Scotland supported me. And I knew he was in very good shape. The last jump from Ourense [un nulo larguísimo en el campeonato nacional] It gave me a lot of confidence and so did the last few training sessions. Two days ago I set a personal best in the cleanup and I know that I have some parameters in terms of strength and speed where you have to mess up a lot to avoid jumping too much. And I compete very well. And I proved it again.”
Ana Peleteiro-Compaore celebrates winning the bronze medal in Glasgow with the audience. ROBERT PERRY (EFE)
It's the gonads, the hormones, the brain. Maternity. “Maybe I'm stronger because I'm a mother, or maybe because I train harder and try harder than before,” the athlete explained a few weeks before the World Championships, reflecting on the fact that she feels like an athlete, yes, However, his income comes mainly from his work as an influencer on networks, half a million followers on TikTok, more than 400,000 on Instagram, 10,000 euros per advertising post. “I get a lot less angry. If something doesn't go the way I want, I downplay it. I mean, damn, if I have a wonderful job, I'm very lucky to be able to devote myself to what I like most, which is athletics, but that's not even what I do for a living, and that's changing too nothing about the fact that I do this. When I come home, my family is waiting for me with a smile. As an elite athlete, if you are unable to raise a family, bond and form a healthy circle, everything ends in frustration. I live without frustration. Having a family around me that makes me happy helps me put less emphasis on athletics.”
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