“There is still Lydia Valentin for a while ,” said the Spanish weightlifter after retiring without exhausting her attempts in the -87 kg category at Tokyo 2020, due to hip discomfort that she has been suffering from for some time.
The triple Olympic medalist (gold in London 2012, silver in Pekin 2008 and bronze in Rio de Janeiro 2016), who lifted a total of 225 kilos in the test (103 in the snatch -she couldn’t with 106- and 122 in her first attempt in two times), was second in her group after South Korean Kang Yeoun-hee, who lifted 231 kilos (103 and 128).
The second place in his group leaves Valentin ahead in the medal options, in the absence of Group A being played in the next few hours, in which the Chilean Maria Fernanda Valdes, the Dominican Crismery Santana, the Ecuadorian Tamara Salazar will participate and the Venezuelan Naryury Alexandra Perez Reveron.
Despite finishing in one of the top positions in her group, the 36-year-old Ponferradina was clear from the start that the Tokyo Games were not her Games.
” I know myself perfectly and I know how I am technically, how I move the weights days before. I was without training for three days, yesterday I did a little mobility and it’s been many years, you know it can’t be. Miracles, no”, commented the athlete at the end of your test.
Valentin seemed to execute his first two snatches of 100 and 103 kilos with relative ease, but he missed the third. In both halves he made his first successful attempt at 122kg to top the list, but when near the end of the session he was going to attempt 126kg he opted to withdraw due to inconvenience.
“Already at the start I felt that I did not move my legs, it was even difficult for me to get down, and once I made the first attempt I already saw that it was beginning to get complicated. I tried to warm up a little more inside before going out and I saw that I had enough pain and that I was not going to change much more. So I decided not to go out, “he explained.
The halter reported that in recent days she had been having hip problems, which she had dragged from Spain, and that this week she was not even sure if she could compete or not. “They infiltrated me here in Villa, as complicated as it is; otherwise, I might not have been able to compete ,” he said in a mixed zone.
” Now to recover 100%, that is what interests me the most ,” said Valentin, who is clear that he does not want the end of his sports career to come with the strange professional and Olympic situation to which he has been dragged in Tokyo 2020 .
This was the first time that the Spaniard competed in the -87kg. Her usual category is 76 kilos, but gastroenteritis left her out of the European Championship and “disrupted her so much” this year, with changes in the federation that made her feel “super lost” and a change of division that forced her to climb a lot of weight in a short time, giving him “health problems, obviously”.
The weight lifter also had critical comments for the International Weightlifting Federation, of which she said that “she does what she wants and that is not good for the athlete.”
” I would have liked to have finished my sports career in the Olympic Games,in my weight category and without all this mess that has happened this last year, with the Olympic cycle so good that I had done since 2017″, said Valentin, who said that he is already looking at Paris 2024. “In the end I also want to be in the Olympic Games as I am and in my weight category and give my best, and now I am left with a very strange feeling, and I don’t like to leave like this,” he added.
