Today I want to talk about a great friend, someone, who isn’t an athlete,but who has made me understand what sport is all about. He has made me see that you don’t have to be a professional athlete and travel all over the world taking part in competitions or going from city to city giving lectures on sport, to understand the true meaning of sport. I have been really lucky that there is someone close to me who can show me this.
Today I want to talk about Arturo. You may ask yourselves why I think that someone who is not an athlete and has no apparent relationship to professional sport can teach me something about the real meaning of sport. Well, sport is all about being constant, it is about analysising, it is about perseverance, it is intelligence, both mental and emotional, it is about controlling of all the variables that can influence the end result, it is about respect and many other things that Arturo embodies to perfection.
You may also ask yourselves, why specifically Arturo? Well, first of all because I want to say thank you to him. He is someone who has taught me so many things. Someone who, although not in any way involved in the sports world, is an important part of my team. Secondly, I want to talk about a person who is not well-known, who is not related to professional sports. Someone who can reflect that the true greatness of this world is not the show or the performance or even the results, but rather someone who understands that sport is a way of life.
A way of life based on values and doing the right thing. Choosing the right path at all times, the path that can teach us something, whether or not we achieve the objective we aim for. A lifestyle based on analysing the situation, not simply obsessing over the end result.
For all this I have chosen Arturo. Because every day that passes on my journey in the world of sport I realize more clearly that the best thing that my sporting career gives me is neither economic, nor work related, nor a media profile. The most important gift I receive is the people I get to know and the lessons I learn from each of them. Every day that I am an athlete, that I professionally dedicate myself to sport, I see that people like Arturo are the ones who represent the true essence of sport, who make it an unstoppable phenomenon at a global level. People who, even without being aware of it, represent the true values of sport. People who struggle, people who persevere, who show respect, who compete in an honest way to get what they long for, who work every day to improve themselves.
Because this is the true meaning of sport, this is its true essence. I am proud to be able to say, in the most widely read newspaper in the Region of Murcia, that people like Arturo represent, for me, the true meaning of sport.