Spain sweeps the march with the best generation in its history

Spain swept the 10,000m walk final of the U20 European Championships , which are being held until Sunday in Tampere, Finland. Leading the pack was Sofía Santacreu, one of those young athletes who transitioned from ballet to sport and found her strength there. She was already champion at the previous edition, in Jerusalem in 2023, and has now retained her title with a time (43m 47.89s) that, in addition to being the world best this year, shatters María Pérez's Spanish record by more than 20 seconds. Another Spaniard, Aldara Meilán, also below the Olympic champion's record, took the bronze medal (44m 15.89s). And the third representative, Claudia Ventura, finished fifth with a new personal best.

Chuso García Bragado , the man of marble, the seemingly infinite walker, says that the three young women form "the best generation of walkers in the history of Spain." And he backs up this statement with the trail they're leaving behind. "You only have to see how they're beating all the Spanish and championship records of Mari Cruz Díaz, María Vasco, and María Pérez." The Madrid native, a world champion in 1993, is so convinced that the first two will be at the Los Angeles Olympics in three years. "A while ago, when they were 16, we held some training camps where I clearly told them and their coaches that our goal was to go to the 2028 Games, and, of course, they all looked at me with these faces..."

Santacreu, 19, who defeated Italian Serena di Fabio—almost two years her junior—in the final 1,000m, is one of the five athletes who was surprised by the lockdown in their teens. A girl who had started athletics with the Sabadell Youth Athletics team, she started training in her home's parking lot: 50 laps of a 60-meter perimeter. That year, always so precocious, she also decided to write a book titled "Entrena con Sofía" (Train with Sofia ), a series of illustrated exercise charts intended as an exercise guide for children at the Dénia Hospital and the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital. She now trains in Cornellà with Alejandro Aragoneses, a club coach and disciple of Jacinto Garzón, who directs the career of Paul McGrath, European runner-up in the 20km last year in Rome.

Aldara Meilán is training in Madrid, where she moved to study at the Physical Education Institute (INEF), with José Antonio Quintana. She's another talent who, last year at the U-20 World Cup in Lima, suffered food poisoning from spoiled eggs, which left half the Spanish team incapacitated and deprived her of a medal. Competing with Santacreu is a stimulus, and together, without losing sight of Claudia Ventura, who trains in Castellón with Lluís Torlà, a former race walker who also won a medal at the U-20 European Championships, they are growing very quickly, winning medals and breaking historic records. Now it remains to be seen if, as García Bragado predicts, they have the capacity to make it to Los Angeles 2028.