TRIUMPH at last for Spain at Tokyo 2020 has come at the steady and unflinching hands of its mixed team trap shooting pair after they fought off their counterparts from San Marino.
The golden pair shoot for the stars and net Spain's first Olympic championship title of Tokyo 2020 (photo: Spanish Olympic Committee - COE)
Fátima, 34, from Baena (Córdoba province) started out hesitantly in the final, causing Spain to bite its nails in the face of the confident, self-assured début the couple's rivals displayed, but she and Alberto, 38, from Madrid, kept their heads and came back swiftly to win 41-40.
As theirs is a minority sport, both have day jobs – Fátima is a nurse and Alberto is a musician – but with their first Olympic gold under their belts, they now have every chance of attracting sponsorship to allow them to further their career in trap shooting.
Neither had managed to leave the last three Olympics with medals in the singles category, but decided they were stronger as a team and that if they were planning to go for gold, it had to be as a united front.
Fátima was first drawn to trap shooting when she watched the Barcelona 1992 Olympics on TV, aged five, although her father did not start to teach her until she was 11.
Alberto was also taught by his dad, whom he used to accompany to training sessions and competitions as a child, pestering to be able to 'have a go'.
Had it not been for his father finally giving in, Alberto may have opted to plough 100% of his energies into becoming a rock star, rather than just 50% - he founded the group Los Geyperman, a tribute band to legendary Spanish act Hombres G, and so far, his biggest audience has been in region of 3,000 people.
Off-stage, he won the world and European championships in 2010, whilst Fátima became world champion in 2015, having won the world junior championships in 2005, aged 18.
They have never before been able to compete together in the Olympics, since the mixed team category did not exist before 2017 when it was approved in time for Tokyo 2020 – back when everyone thought the Tokyo Games would, in fact, be in 2020 – although in that short time, Fátima and Alberto managed to pack in some serious achievements.
As a pair, they netted the gold in the 2019 World Cup, and the silver in the same competition in Nicosia, Cyprus, in 2020, as well as various other significant triumphs in that year.
“We're a team. For me, it's a game, I'm just having a great time and that's always been my aim – having lots of fun, coming here [for Tokyo] to compete in what I most know how to do – and with Fátima that's very easy to do, because she's the best,” Alberto says.
Theirs is not only Spain's first gold in Tokyo, and the first-ever mixed team Olympic gold in history, but is the first medal in the Games for their country and their sport in 17 years since María Quintanal won the individual silver at Athens 2004.
Before her, the only competitors to have earned an Olympic medal in trap shooting for Spain have been Ángel León, who took the silver in 50-metres pistol shooting a Helskinki 1952, and Jorge Guardiola who got the bronze in trap shooting at Seoul 1988.
This means Fátima and Alberto's gold is not just the first for their sport as a team, but outright for Spain for Olympic shooting, as well as the first gold ever awarded in the Games in the mixed team category.
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