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OLYMPICS

Flamenco queen makes bid for badminton gold for Spain

Inspired by a love of flamenco dancing and sporting hero Rafael Nadal, Spain's Carolina Marin dreams of becoming the first European woman to win a badminton Olympic gold in Rio.

Published: 28 July 2016 09:29 CEST
Flamenco queen makes bid for badminton gold for Spain
Carolina Marin danced flamenco before learning badminton. Photo: AFP

Marin's ambitions are lofty but realistic. She is a two-time world champion in a sport normally dominated by Asia.

She is also ranked number one in the world and has blazed the trail for badminton in Spain where minority sports struggle for funding and attention in the shadows of the nation's star-studded football teams.

“It is an obsession and an ambitious objective,” said Marin at the end of another day's training at the performance centre in Madrid she describes as “home.”

“It will be more difficult than the world championships because there is more pressure, the expectations from the press and the people are very different to a world or European championship. But I am desperate for it to come and, above all, enjoy the Olympic games.”

Marin was dumped out in the first round in London four years ago as a 19-year-old by gold medal winner Li Xuerui of China, but much has changed since winning the world championships for the first time two years ago.  

She retained her world title in Indonesia last year and won the European championships for a second time in May to consolidate her place as world number one and the only European player in the top 10.

“The secret of all this is in the work we have done. Many hours in this centre, which is my home. It is the fundamental key to my climb up the rankings.”

Flamenco badminton

Yet, another key to the unexpected rise of a girl from Huelva on Spain's sunny southwest coast to world number one was her love of flamenco as a youngster.

“I danced flamenco and thanks to a friend I got to know badminton.    

“They are very different, but there are some movements in dancing flamenco, above all the fluidity of my body, which helps me play badminton.”  

Marin will follow Nadal as Spain's flag bearer at the opening ceremony on August 5th.

Yet, despite speaking of the 14-time tennis grand slam champion in reverential terms, she admitted she has already done more for badminton in her homeland than even Nadal has for tennis.

“Before Nadal we had already discovered tennis. Manolo Santana was the one that opened tennis to Spain. However, I am the one who has opened badminton to Spain.

“I feel very proud and fortunate to have done so. Hopefully in the future we will have more Spanish champions.”  

Gone are the days when she says taxi drivers used to ask her what badminton was when she arrived back from international competitions with racket in hand.  

“After the first world championship nobody asked me 'what is badminton?' People recognise me in the streets, when I get into a taxi they congratulate me and say they are honoured to give me a lift, so things have changed a lot in Spain.”

Gold on August 19th could see Marin catapulted even further into the media spotlight if she can see off the likes of Chinese world number two Wang Yihan, defending champion Li and Indonesia's Ratchanok Intanon, who has been cleared of an anti-doping violation, to take part.

And unlike many tennis and golf stars, Marin insisted she won't let fears of the Zika virus ruin her dreams of Olympic gold.  

“When I heard about the mosquito problem I was worried more than anything because you could get ill during the Olympics.    

“To think that after all the preparation we have done to get there and then you could get ill when you are there.  

“But for sure we will have the means to avoid that.”    

“The doctors will take all the precautions and in the end the player has to trust in the doctors, physios and team that surrounds them.”  

By Kieran Canning and Jean Decotte

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SPORT

The French Paralympic star who survived war, grief and mutilation

The Paralympics is full of stories of disabled athletes overcoming the odds to achieve sporting greatness but few bear the trauma of Jean-Baptiste Alaize.

Published: 28 August 2020 10:06 CEST
The French Paralympic star who survived war, grief and mutilation
Jean-Baptiste Alaize training in Antibes. All photos: AFP

The 29-year-old French sprinter and long-jumper, who features in Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix released on Wednesday, was just three years old when he lost his right leg.

Not by accident or illness but by the brutal hack of a machete.

A child caught up in the civil war in Burundi in October 1994, he watched as his mother was beheaded.

“For years, every time I closed my eyes, I had flashes. I saw my mother being executed in front of me,” he tells AFP after a training session in Antibes, running his finger across his throat.

The killers left the Tutsi boy for dead. Alaize carries a large scar on his back but he was also slashed across the neck, right arm and right leg by his Hutu neighbours.

He woke up in hospital several days later, alive but missing the lower part of his right leg which had had to be amputated.

“With my mother, we ran, we ran, but we didn't manage to run far,” he says. “We were executed 40 metres from the house.”

A decade later, after coming to France in 1998 and being adopted by a French family, he joined the athletics club in Drôme.

Fitted with a prosthetic limb, he discovered that running gave him his first night without a nightmare since the attack.

“From my first steps on the track, I had the impression that I had to run as long as possible, so as not to be caught,” says Alaize who now lives in Miami.

“I remember like it was yesterday my first night after this session, it was… wow! I had cleared my mind. I was free.

“My energy, my hatred, were focussed on the track. I understood that sport could be my therapy.”

He tried horseback riding and enjoyed it, reaching level six, out of seven, until he pulled the plug.

“It was my horse that let off steam and not me,” he laughs.

The psychologist did not work out either.

“She made me make circles and squares. After a few sessions I told her that I wanted to change my method.”

However he did click with his school physical education teacher, who directed him to athletics after he had anchored his team to a spectacular “comeback” win in a 4×100 metre relay.

His classmates had no idea he was an amputee. He had hidden it to avoid teasing and more racial abuse.

“I was called 'bamboula', dirty negro, the monkey. It was hard.”

Fortunately, the Alaize family, who adopted him after he had spent five years in a Bujumbura orphanage where his father had abandoned him, gave Jean-Baptiste a base and a home that he had not had for years.

“When I arrived here I didn't know it was possible,” he said.

“I had lost that side, to be loved. I still can't understand how racism can set in, when I see my parents who are white, and I am a black child… they loved me like a child.”

His parents, Robert and Daniele, had already adopted a Hutu child from Rwanda, renamed Julien.

John-Baptist was originally called Mugisha. It means “the lucky child” which is not quite how things worked out. His new family name, though, suits him better. Alaize is a pun in French for 'a l'aise' – at ease.

The French disabled sports federation spotted the prodigy, and he began collecting his first trophies, including four junior world titles at long jump, three of them with world records.

“It was starting to change my life and I was happy to represent France,” he says.

He went to the Paralympic Games in London (2012) and Rio (2016), where he finished fifth in the long jump, just five centimetres short of the bronze medal.

Now armed with his state-of-the-art prosthesis, which he nicknamed Bugatti, he was dreaming of taking a step up at Tokyo 2020 and going home to France with a medal but the postponement of the Games has decimated his sponsorships.

“I'm still looking to compete at Tokyo 2021 or 2022 and Paris 2024,” he says.

“If I don't succeed, I will have to turn the page which would be sad.”

He hopes that Rising Phoenix will raise his profile and maybe attract some sponsors.

The documentary's producer Ian Bonhote is in no doubt that Alaize's star is rising.

“He bursts through the screen. His story will resonate,” he says.

“The nine athletes in our documentary all have different backgrounds, but none survived what Jean-Baptiste suffered. His disability was imposed on him in such a savage and violent way.”

Rising Pheonix is available now to view on Netflix.

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