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Meet Spain's Winter Olympic team: Who's heading to Peking 2022
21/01/2022
SNOW is nearly as common as sweltering summer sunshine in Spain, thanks to the huge expanse of high-altitude areas inland in what is the second-most mountainous country in Europe after Switzerland – so sending candidates for the Winter Olympics is not as unusual as occasional tourists might think: Some of the continent's best, and comparatively cheapest, ski resorts are based in Spain, and northern and landlocked provinces regularly see minus figures on the thermometer in winter.
So it's not quite as bizarre-sounding as a Jamaican bobsleigh team, whose real-life Olympic début in 1988 inspired the Disney film Cool Runnings; and who got the last laugh in the end as the Caribbean island has fielded a two-man entry in six games since 1992, with a women's squad starting at the most recent one in 2018.
They'll be back this year, too, with a mixed team of 10, and hopefully won't have to crowdfund their entry like they did for Sochi, which the Dogecoin cryptocurrency community started by amassing three-quarters of the cash for them in two days flat.
Spain's snowy track record
Although Spain is a regular at these icy games, the nation went a whole 26 years without bringing home a single medal until the Pyeongchang (South Korea) Olympics in 2018.
Back then, 'super-skater' Javier Fernández, who had already netted six consecutive European Championships, two world titles and an Olympic diploma from Sochi 2014, was only missing a medal from the most-televised global sporting event and was tipped for a gold.
He earned a bronze, and 'boardercross' snow-boarder Regino Hernández joined Javier in making history with another bronze, but both have now retired from their sports, meaning those remaining of their generation of winter whizzkids, and the freshest faces on the block, will be feeling the pressure more than ever at Peking 2022.
In total, 14 Spaniards will be representing their country in the white wilderness outside China's capital between February 4 and 20, competing for TV viewers across the planet with the Superbowl, of whom nine are members of the Royal Spanish Winter Sports Federation (RFEDI) and five belong to the Royal Spanish Sports on Ice Federation (RFEDH).
Six are returning entries from 2018, meaning a majority of début competitors – eight in total - who, although they will, of course, be dreaming of the podium and, perhaps, the Spanish national anthem played in their name, will mainly just be enjoying the novelty of the Olympic experience this year.
Let's take a look at whom we'll be cheering on next month.
Queralt Castellet
The snow-boarder from Sabadell (Barcelona province) will have literally spent half her life training for or competing in Winter Olympics by February 2022. Peking will be her fifth games, aged 32, with her first being Torino 2006 when she was just 16.
National reserve champion in gymnastics in 2004, Queralt specialises in 'halfpipe' – for newcomers to winter sports, this mode of snow-boarding involves a track shaped like the bottom part of a massive tube or pipe and competitors are scored according to their moves as they slide from side to side, spin and jump.
Tipped for a medal in 2018, Queralt has generally had rotten luck at Winter Olympics – a fall in Vancouver 2010 put her out of the running when she was in third place in the standings, and a last-minute error in both moves in the Sochi 2014 final when she was second from top knocked her down to 11th.
This was still higher than the 26th place she finished in after Torino, and she would go on to improve on the Sochi result in 2018, coming seventh and taking home an Olympic diploma.
Queralt has regularly made the top 10 in World Championships, of which she has so far competed in seven, with two medals – the silver at Kreischberg 2015 and the bronze at Aspen 2021 – as well as the silver at the university games in Granada in 2015.
Her best World Cup result so far was second place overall in the 2011-2012 season, but she has earned six wins out of a total of 17 podium places at this level in competitions that earn points towards the final World Cup standings, and in 2020, she took home her first gold – in the USA Winter X-Games, in 'superpipe'.
These games, in Aspen, Colorado, also earned Queralt a silver the previous year.
Lucas Eguibar
Another veteran, despite his young age – he will turn 28 on February 9, celebrating his birthday at the games – Lucas Eguibar will be competing in his third Winter Olympics, having taken home a seventh-place diploma from Sochi, but finishing a disappointing 33rd in Pyeongchang.
Cross-country snow-boarder Lucas, from San Sebastián in the Basque Country, has had more success in other global competition, though: He is defending World Champion, having earned the gold in the individual event in 2021, and was reserve individual and team champion – the latter along with Regino Hernández – gaining the silvers in these in 2017.
These results, despite his only having been in one Winter Olympics at the time and not having brought home a medal, were enough to qualify him to be flag-bearer at the games in 2018.
Joaquim Salarich
The same age as Lucas Eguibar, slalom skier 'Quim', from Vich (Barcelona province) took part in the Winter Olympics for the first time in 2018, and has twice competed in the World Championships – at Vail/Beaver Creek in 2015 and St Moritz in 2017 – and in as many World Cups, in 2015 in Madonna di Campiglio in Italy's Dolomite mountains, then in Schladming, Austria in 2016.
He has yet to boast any significant international results, but has been national champion for Spain twice in 2013 and 2015 in slalom and in 2021 in alpine skiing, making it to the podium at this level four times.
Quim has done rather well at International Ski Federation (FIS) level, however, with a string of victories and an increasing number of points each season that has consistently improved his overall ranking.
Imanol Rojo
Cross-country skier Imanol was picked for the national team when he was just 15 and, aged 24, became Spanish champion in the 15-kilometres individual category – and Peking will be his third Winter Olympics.
Imanol repeated his national championship performance the next two years on the trot in Linza and Candanchú respectively in the same discipline, then for a fourth year in Beret in 2017, but in the 10-kilometres category, the same year he took the Austrian skiathlon title.
He took part in the 15-kilometres individual, the 30-kilometres skiathlon and the 50-kilometres mass start in both games, the Sprint in Sochi and the Team Sprint in Pyeongchang, the latter giving him his best result at this level, 19th overall.
As an individual in the Winter Olympics, his positions have ranged from 33rd down to 62nd, similar results to his participation in World Championships – of which he has competed in five, from 2013 until 2021.
Last year's World Championships gave Imanol his best positions to date – 33rd, 19th and 18th in the 15-kilometres individual, the 30-kilometres skiathlon and the 50-kilometres mass start.
Other than 2017, Imanol has taken part in every World Cup event from 2013 to 2021 inclusive.
Aside from his national championship wins, the 31-year-old from Tolosa in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa has yet to net any major titles or podium places at international level – although he will be an Olympic 'regular' by next month, meaning he may find his lengthy experience starts to pay off.
Ander Mirambell
Spain's first-ever skeleton racer from Calella (Barcelona province) is another who will be celebrating his birthday in Peking – he turns 39 on February 17 – which will be his fourth Winter Olympics, and he hopes to improve on his consistent 20-something finishes this time around.
The racer known to friends as 'Spicy Meatball' and 'El Gato de Hielo' ('The Ice-Cat') finished 24th in Vancouver 2010, then 26th in Sochi and 23rd in Pyeongchang, meaning his best and worst results at the games are not far apart.
'Skeleton' involves a small, one-person bobsleigh, which is ridden lying face-down and head-first, and in 2016 Ander became the fastest man on his stomach in North America when he took home the championship after winning five of his six races.
He won two races in Calgary in 2015, one in Park City in 2016, and two in Lake Placid, securing his title in the America's Cup in the General category.
The following year, he achieved seven victories, a silver and a bronze at the same level, and won the Cup again in 2020, making him the first European ever to clinch it twice.
He was also the first Spaniard ever to win the 'Christmas Race' in Austria, in December 2010, and became the first skeleton champion from Spain in St Moritz in February 2020.
Ander's best result in a European Championship was 9th, in Winterberg (Germany) in 2017, the same year as his best World Cup position, 13th, in Lake Placid.
A graduate in sports and physical activity sciences, with two master's degrees - one in football management, methodology and analysis, and one in sports facilities management – Ander has also written a book, Rompiendo el Hielo ('Breaking the Ice'), about his experience of being the only Spaniard in his sport at Sochi Olympics.
Consistency and experience, as well as his victories in North America, mean Ander could be in with a chance at Peking, either of a medal or, at least, a diploma.
Adur Etxezarreta
The 25-year-old from Areso, Navarra is well-decorated at national level, having won a gold and two silvers in Super-G, or super-giant slalom, in 2019, 2014 and 2021 respectively, and a bronze in slalom in 2013, but his only success internationally so far is coming second in a slalom race at the European Cup 2022, just a week ago in Tarvisio, Italy.
This was his second, having made his European début in December 2017 in Reiteralm, Austria, in Super-G, but without finishing the trial.
Still up and coming, Adur has competed in one World Cup, in 2019 in Lake Louse, finishing 59th, and two World Championships, in Åre, Sweden, in 2019 where he finished 40th in the Downhill slalom and retired in the Super-G, and in Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Italian Alpes in 2021, where he did not complete either category.
Last week, Adur's silver in Tarvisio made him the first Spaniard ever to win a medal in downhill slalom, covering 3.3 kilometres in one minute, 47.71 seconds, meaning he has started the year on a good note and, with luck, will continue as he means to go on at his first-ever Winter Olympics.
Nuria Pau
Coming from a village at an altitude of 912 metres in the province of Girona, one of just 1,766 people living in Ribes del Freser, Nuria is in the ideal place for practising skiing, and although she is fairly new to international competition, she has managed to obtain top-30 positions in previous European Cup finals, finished 36th in the World Cup in Slovakia, and her most recent crack at the former in Orcières, France last week saw her end 18th in the rankings.
And that's despite a major injury at the end of last season, when she broke her nose and dislocated her shoulder in a fall.
It took her five months to recover sufficiently to be able to ski again, which she did in September, but another setback came in the shape of a twisted ankle, which has prevented her from training as much as she would like.
Nuria assures she is now fully back to fitness and is 'very excited' about competing in the Winter Olympics.
“I'm still trying to process the news,” she says.
“I've spent years fighting for this, and longer still dreaming about it.”
During the 2018-2019 season – ahead of which she went on a solo trip to South America to try to earn enough points to qualify for Pyeongchang, and returned as overall Slalom champion – Nuria earned the Absolute Champion titles in Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain after finishing first in all three disciplines she took part in, Slalom, Giant Slalom and Super-G.
She will return from Peking four days before her 28th birthday, possibly with a medal or a diploma in the Giant Slalom category she will be taking part in.
Thibault Magnin
Just turned 21, Thibault was born in Fribourg, Switzerland, to a Spanish mother and Swiss father, and his passion for skiing developed at an early age in his native country – but was far less easy to continue with after the whole family moved to Mallorca.
Thibault, however, earned a scholarship to continue with his skiing and studying in the USA, and finished sixth form there last summer.
Although he has been fully focused on the 2022 Winter Olympics since, Thibault is keen to go on to university, even knowing he will then have to balance his studies with his sport.
And on top of all that, he has signed up with several modelling agencies in Barcelona, but says he will focus on this work in summer, between ski seasons and college.
Aged 17, Thibault earned a bronze medal in Big Air freestyle in the Junior World Championships, becoming the first Spaniard ever to compete at this level and in this category in the 'mainstream' World Championships in 2021, where he finished 9th.
Just breaking into the 'big time', Thibault's promising career to date shows he may be a contender for a medal for Spain at the Winter Olympics – if not at his first games in 2022, then certainly in future ones.
Javier Lliso
Freestyler Javier missed out on the Big Air final of the World Cup in Steamboat, USA in December, but finished 8th in his category and 15th overall, giving him valuable points towards qualifying for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
He came 12th overall in the 2019-2020 World Cup in Slopestyle, and at 24, already holds the honour of being the highest-placed Spaniard at that level in freestyle skiing.
Javier remembers the first time he watched a Winter Olympics – he was 16, the games were in Sochi, and the young prodigy was in a language class at school, paying more attention to his phone than his lesson.
His teacher was 'not amused', Javier laughs, which makes it all the more surreal for him to think that just eight years on, he will be a competitor at the very event he was caught watching under the desk.
And no doubt his teacher who told him off for it will be cheering him on.
Jaume Pueyo
Sprinter Jaume only turned 20 in October, but sporting competition has a habit of making young people involved in it mature for their years – and we can see this through Jaume's axiom, that 'hard work beats talent' every time.
Currently studying a degree in marketing and market research, Jaume is top in the world ranking in under-21 sprint, came third in the Alpen Cup Pokyluca Sprint, 13th in the World Junior Sprint final – and 8th overall – fifth in the Alpen Cup Goms Distance, first in all categories in the under-20s national championships, 18th in the 'mainstream' World Championships in team sprint and 53rd in individual sprint in Oberstdorf...all this in 2021 alone.
The Alpen Cup results form part of the European Cup event, and although he has not reached the podium in this tournament as a whole, Jaume's performance in the qualifying races has been excellent to date – including winning the Alpen Cup Goms Sprint in 2020.
Peking 2022 should be the first of many Winter Olympics for Jaume, but he has already shown he has the potential to be a medal-winner as he gains experience.
Olivia Smart and Adrià Díaz
This pair first teamed up for the 2015-2016 ice-dancing season, and made their global début at Lake Placid Ice Dance International in July 2016, netting a silver.
They would go on to come fourth at the US International Classic and sixth at both the CS Autumn Classic International and the CS Finlandia Trophy that same year, before clinching the gold at the Open d'Andorra.
Oliva, who will be 25 on April 1 this year, was in fact born in Sheffield, UK, and trained there and in nearby Nottingham, then moved to Montréal in Canada's French-speaking province of Québéc, along with Adrià, to train under Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenauer.
To this end, although Olivia Smart has been a Spanish citizen since 2017 – getting her new nationality at the same time as Russian-born Kirill Khaliavin – she has never lived in Spain.
Both have Spanish dance partners – Kirill competed in Pyeongchang with Sara Hurtado – but a partnership can only represent one country in the Winter Olympics and, after the two couples discussed the issue, decided they wanted to compete for Spain.
This means they were eligible for 'sports nationality', although the British and Russian authorities had the last word and it was a race to get their approval before the 2018 games.
The British Skating Association had to formally release Olivia so she could represent Spain, which it did in mid-January 2016.
Adrià, 31, comes from Barcelona, but has trained in London and Madrid, and he and Olivia are still living in Montréal at present.
Formerly partnered with Sara Hurtado, Adrià won six senior international medals, five Spanish national titles, finished 13th at Sochi 2014 and 11th in that year's International Skating Union (ISU) Championships.
Sara and Adrià were the first duo to compete for Spain in an ISU event and to qualify for a Winter Olympics.
Their best result as a pair was fifth in the European Championships in 2015, the same year they came 14th in a World Championship, but in other international competition, Adrià and Sara rarely failed to make the top 10.
These included the GP France (fourth and eighth), the GP Skate Canada (eighth), the CS Autumn Classic (fifth), the CS Golden Spin and the Bavarian Open (third in each), and the Cup of Nice (third and second).
Adrià did not take part in Pyeongchang, although Sara Hurtado did, with Kirill, but he and Olivia have made the podium 14 times and are usually in the top six or, at least, the top eight, except in the two World Championships they have danced in together.
They withdrew from the 2020-2021 Worlds, and the previous year's competition was cancelled due to the pandemic, but as a duo, their glittering track record means Olivia's first-ever Olympics, Adrià's second and his first with Olivia, might just have them contributing to Spain's medal count in February.
Laura Barquero and Marco Zandron
This figure-skating pair's career is only just taking off, although we may not have seen anything yet: Home from their first European Championships a week ago in Tallinn, Estonia, their 9th place means they have guaranteed a slot for Spain in next year's event.
Laura, 20 and Marco, 23 admitted to having been nervous, which led to their making a handful of mistakes that proved expensive in points terms – a hefty fall in the triple flip, and failing to complete the triple salchow + double toe and triple toe – but had they avoided these errors, it is likely they would have finished in a much higher position.
“We were nervous, but no more so than in other competitions – we don't really know what happened,” Laura confessed at the end of their performance.
“It simply wasn't our day.
“We fought through to the final and came away 9th, which is a good result, given that it's our début.”
Three weeks after Tallinn, they will be making another début – not just as a duo, but for their country: Laura and Marco will be the first Spaniards ever to compete in the pairs figure-skating at the Winter Olympics.
They've got off to a great start, which would have been greater still if it had been 'their day'; we've seen what they're capable of, so let's hope they keep their nerves in check in Peking.
Even if they don't, or they miss bringing home a medal despite complete confidence in themselves, few would expect them to achieve significant results at their 'maiden' games, but their youth means they'll be good for a few more Winter Olympics yet, by which time they'll have amassed considerable experience at global level.
Definitely a dancing duo to watch for the future.
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SNOW is nearly as common as sweltering summer sunshine in Spain, thanks to the huge expanse of high-altitude areas inland in what is the second-most mountainous country in Europe after Switzerland – so sending candidates for the Winter Olympics is not as unusual as occasional tourists might think: Some of the continent's best, and comparatively cheapest, ski resorts are based in Spain, and northern and landlocked provinces regularly see minus figures on the thermometer in winter.
So it's not quite as bizarre-sounding as a Jamaican bobsleigh team, whose real-life Olympic début in 1988 inspired the Disney film Cool Runnings; and who got the last laugh in the end as the Caribbean island has fielded a two-man entry in six games since 1992, with a women's squad starting at the most recent one in 2018.
They'll be back this year, too, with a mixed team of 10, and hopefully won't have to crowdfund their entry like they did for Sochi, which the Dogecoin cryptocurrency community started by amassing three-quarters of the cash for them in two days flat.
Spain's snowy track record
Although Spain is a regular at these icy games, the nation went a whole 26 years without bringing home a single medal until the Pyeongchang (South Korea) Olympics in 2018.
Back then, 'super-skater' Javier Fernández, who had already netted six consecutive European Championships, two world titles and an Olympic diploma from Sochi 2014, was only missing a medal from the most-televised global sporting event and was tipped for a gold.
He earned a bronze, and 'boardercross' snow-boarder Regino Hernández joined Javier in making history with another bronze, but both have now retired from their sports, meaning those remaining of their generation of winter whizzkids, and the freshest faces on the block, will be feeling the pressure more than ever at Peking 2022.
In total, 14 Spaniards will be representing their country in the white wilderness outside China's capital between February 4 and 20, competing for TV viewers across the planet with the Superbowl, of whom nine are members of the Royal Spanish Winter Sports Federation (RFEDI) and five belong to the Royal Spanish Sports on Ice Federation (RFEDH).
Six are returning entries from 2018, meaning a majority of début competitors – eight in total - who, although they will, of course, be dreaming of the podium and, perhaps, the Spanish national anthem played in their name, will mainly just be enjoying the novelty of the Olympic experience this year.
Let's take a look at whom we'll be cheering on next month.
Queralt Castellet
The snow-boarder from Sabadell (Barcelona province) will have literally spent half her life training for or competing in Winter Olympics by February 2022. Peking will be her fifth games, aged 32, with her first being Torino 2006 when she was just 16.
National reserve champion in gymnastics in 2004, Queralt specialises in 'halfpipe' – for newcomers to winter sports, this mode of snow-boarding involves a track shaped like the bottom part of a massive tube or pipe and competitors are scored according to their moves as they slide from side to side, spin and jump.
Tipped for a medal in 2018, Queralt has generally had rotten luck at Winter Olympics – a fall in Vancouver 2010 put her out of the running when she was in third place in the standings, and a last-minute error in both moves in the Sochi 2014 final when she was second from top knocked her down to 11th.
This was still higher than the 26th place she finished in after Torino, and she would go on to improve on the Sochi result in 2018, coming seventh and taking home an Olympic diploma.
Queralt has regularly made the top 10 in World Championships, of which she has so far competed in seven, with two medals – the silver at Kreischberg 2015 and the bronze at Aspen 2021 – as well as the silver at the university games in Granada in 2015.
Her best World Cup result so far was second place overall in the 2011-2012 season, but she has earned six wins out of a total of 17 podium places at this level in competitions that earn points towards the final World Cup standings, and in 2020, she took home her first gold – in the USA Winter X-Games, in 'superpipe'.
These games, in Aspen, Colorado, also earned Queralt a silver the previous year.
Lucas Eguibar
Another veteran, despite his young age – he will turn 28 on February 9, celebrating his birthday at the games – Lucas Eguibar will be competing in his third Winter Olympics, having taken home a seventh-place diploma from Sochi, but finishing a disappointing 33rd in Pyeongchang.
Cross-country snow-boarder Lucas, from San Sebastián in the Basque Country, has had more success in other global competition, though: He is defending World Champion, having earned the gold in the individual event in 2021, and was reserve individual and team champion – the latter along with Regino Hernández – gaining the silvers in these in 2017.
These results, despite his only having been in one Winter Olympics at the time and not having brought home a medal, were enough to qualify him to be flag-bearer at the games in 2018.
Joaquim Salarich
The same age as Lucas Eguibar, slalom skier 'Quim', from Vich (Barcelona province) took part in the Winter Olympics for the first time in 2018, and has twice competed in the World Championships – at Vail/Beaver Creek in 2015 and St Moritz in 2017 – and in as many World Cups, in 2015 in Madonna di Campiglio in Italy's Dolomite mountains, then in Schladming, Austria in 2016.
He has yet to boast any significant international results, but has been national champion for Spain twice in 2013 and 2015 in slalom and in 2021 in alpine skiing, making it to the podium at this level four times.
Quim has done rather well at International Ski Federation (FIS) level, however, with a string of victories and an increasing number of points each season that has consistently improved his overall ranking.
Imanol Rojo
Cross-country skier Imanol was picked for the national team when he was just 15 and, aged 24, became Spanish champion in the 15-kilometres individual category – and Peking will be his third Winter Olympics.
Imanol repeated his national championship performance the next two years on the trot in Linza and Candanchú respectively in the same discipline, then for a fourth year in Beret in 2017, but in the 10-kilometres category, the same year he took the Austrian skiathlon title.
He took part in the 15-kilometres individual, the 30-kilometres skiathlon and the 50-kilometres mass start in both games, the Sprint in Sochi and the Team Sprint in Pyeongchang, the latter giving him his best result at this level, 19th overall.
As an individual in the Winter Olympics, his positions have ranged from 33rd down to 62nd, similar results to his participation in World Championships – of which he has competed in five, from 2013 until 2021.
Last year's World Championships gave Imanol his best positions to date – 33rd, 19th and 18th in the 15-kilometres individual, the 30-kilometres skiathlon and the 50-kilometres mass start.
Other than 2017, Imanol has taken part in every World Cup event from 2013 to 2021 inclusive.
Aside from his national championship wins, the 31-year-old from Tolosa in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa has yet to net any major titles or podium places at international level – although he will be an Olympic 'regular' by next month, meaning he may find his lengthy experience starts to pay off.
Ander Mirambell
Spain's first-ever skeleton racer from Calella (Barcelona province) is another who will be celebrating his birthday in Peking – he turns 39 on February 17 – which will be his fourth Winter Olympics, and he hopes to improve on his consistent 20-something finishes this time around.
The racer known to friends as 'Spicy Meatball' and 'El Gato de Hielo' ('The Ice-Cat') finished 24th in Vancouver 2010, then 26th in Sochi and 23rd in Pyeongchang, meaning his best and worst results at the games are not far apart.
'Skeleton' involves a small, one-person bobsleigh, which is ridden lying face-down and head-first, and in 2016 Ander became the fastest man on his stomach in North America when he took home the championship after winning five of his six races.
He won two races in Calgary in 2015, one in Park City in 2016, and two in Lake Placid, securing his title in the America's Cup in the General category.
The following year, he achieved seven victories, a silver and a bronze at the same level, and won the Cup again in 2020, making him the first European ever to clinch it twice.
He was also the first Spaniard ever to win the 'Christmas Race' in Austria, in December 2010, and became the first skeleton champion from Spain in St Moritz in February 2020.
Ander's best result in a European Championship was 9th, in Winterberg (Germany) in 2017, the same year as his best World Cup position, 13th, in Lake Placid.
A graduate in sports and physical activity sciences, with two master's degrees - one in football management, methodology and analysis, and one in sports facilities management – Ander has also written a book, Rompiendo el Hielo ('Breaking the Ice'), about his experience of being the only Spaniard in his sport at Sochi Olympics.
Consistency and experience, as well as his victories in North America, mean Ander could be in with a chance at Peking, either of a medal or, at least, a diploma.
Adur Etxezarreta
The 25-year-old from Areso, Navarra is well-decorated at national level, having won a gold and two silvers in Super-G, or super-giant slalom, in 2019, 2014 and 2021 respectively, and a bronze in slalom in 2013, but his only success internationally so far is coming second in a slalom race at the European Cup 2022, just a week ago in Tarvisio, Italy.
This was his second, having made his European début in December 2017 in Reiteralm, Austria, in Super-G, but without finishing the trial.
Still up and coming, Adur has competed in one World Cup, in 2019 in Lake Louse, finishing 59th, and two World Championships, in Åre, Sweden, in 2019 where he finished 40th in the Downhill slalom and retired in the Super-G, and in Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Italian Alpes in 2021, where he did not complete either category.
Last week, Adur's silver in Tarvisio made him the first Spaniard ever to win a medal in downhill slalom, covering 3.3 kilometres in one minute, 47.71 seconds, meaning he has started the year on a good note and, with luck, will continue as he means to go on at his first-ever Winter Olympics.
Nuria Pau
Coming from a village at an altitude of 912 metres in the province of Girona, one of just 1,766 people living in Ribes del Freser, Nuria is in the ideal place for practising skiing, and although she is fairly new to international competition, she has managed to obtain top-30 positions in previous European Cup finals, finished 36th in the World Cup in Slovakia, and her most recent crack at the former in Orcières, France last week saw her end 18th in the rankings.
And that's despite a major injury at the end of last season, when she broke her nose and dislocated her shoulder in a fall.
It took her five months to recover sufficiently to be able to ski again, which she did in September, but another setback came in the shape of a twisted ankle, which has prevented her from training as much as she would like.
Nuria assures she is now fully back to fitness and is 'very excited' about competing in the Winter Olympics.
“I'm still trying to process the news,” she says.
“I've spent years fighting for this, and longer still dreaming about it.”
During the 2018-2019 season – ahead of which she went on a solo trip to South America to try to earn enough points to qualify for Pyeongchang, and returned as overall Slalom champion – Nuria earned the Absolute Champion titles in Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain after finishing first in all three disciplines she took part in, Slalom, Giant Slalom and Super-G.
She will return from Peking four days before her 28th birthday, possibly with a medal or a diploma in the Giant Slalom category she will be taking part in.
Thibault Magnin
Just turned 21, Thibault was born in Fribourg, Switzerland, to a Spanish mother and Swiss father, and his passion for skiing developed at an early age in his native country – but was far less easy to continue with after the whole family moved to Mallorca.
Thibault, however, earned a scholarship to continue with his skiing and studying in the USA, and finished sixth form there last summer.
Although he has been fully focused on the 2022 Winter Olympics since, Thibault is keen to go on to university, even knowing he will then have to balance his studies with his sport.
And on top of all that, he has signed up with several modelling agencies in Barcelona, but says he will focus on this work in summer, between ski seasons and college.
Aged 17, Thibault earned a bronze medal in Big Air freestyle in the Junior World Championships, becoming the first Spaniard ever to compete at this level and in this category in the 'mainstream' World Championships in 2021, where he finished 9th.
Just breaking into the 'big time', Thibault's promising career to date shows he may be a contender for a medal for Spain at the Winter Olympics – if not at his first games in 2022, then certainly in future ones.
Javier Lliso
Freestyler Javier missed out on the Big Air final of the World Cup in Steamboat, USA in December, but finished 8th in his category and 15th overall, giving him valuable points towards qualifying for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
He came 12th overall in the 2019-2020 World Cup in Slopestyle, and at 24, already holds the honour of being the highest-placed Spaniard at that level in freestyle skiing.
Javier remembers the first time he watched a Winter Olympics – he was 16, the games were in Sochi, and the young prodigy was in a language class at school, paying more attention to his phone than his lesson.
His teacher was 'not amused', Javier laughs, which makes it all the more surreal for him to think that just eight years on, he will be a competitor at the very event he was caught watching under the desk.
And no doubt his teacher who told him off for it will be cheering him on.
Jaume Pueyo
Sprinter Jaume only turned 20 in October, but sporting competition has a habit of making young people involved in it mature for their years – and we can see this through Jaume's axiom, that 'hard work beats talent' every time.
Currently studying a degree in marketing and market research, Jaume is top in the world ranking in under-21 sprint, came third in the Alpen Cup Pokyluca Sprint, 13th in the World Junior Sprint final – and 8th overall – fifth in the Alpen Cup Goms Distance, first in all categories in the under-20s national championships, 18th in the 'mainstream' World Championships in team sprint and 53rd in individual sprint in Oberstdorf...all this in 2021 alone.
The Alpen Cup results form part of the European Cup event, and although he has not reached the podium in this tournament as a whole, Jaume's performance in the qualifying races has been excellent to date – including winning the Alpen Cup Goms Sprint in 2020.
Peking 2022 should be the first of many Winter Olympics for Jaume, but he has already shown he has the potential to be a medal-winner as he gains experience.
Olivia Smart and Adrià Díaz
This pair first teamed up for the 2015-2016 ice-dancing season, and made their global début at Lake Placid Ice Dance International in July 2016, netting a silver.
They would go on to come fourth at the US International Classic and sixth at both the CS Autumn Classic International and the CS Finlandia Trophy that same year, before clinching the gold at the Open d'Andorra.
Oliva, who will be 25 on April 1 this year, was in fact born in Sheffield, UK, and trained there and in nearby Nottingham, then moved to Montréal in Canada's French-speaking province of Québéc, along with Adrià, to train under Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenauer.
To this end, although Olivia Smart has been a Spanish citizen since 2017 – getting her new nationality at the same time as Russian-born Kirill Khaliavin – she has never lived in Spain.
Both have Spanish dance partners – Kirill competed in Pyeongchang with Sara Hurtado – but a partnership can only represent one country in the Winter Olympics and, after the two couples discussed the issue, decided they wanted to compete for Spain.
This means they were eligible for 'sports nationality', although the British and Russian authorities had the last word and it was a race to get their approval before the 2018 games.
The British Skating Association had to formally release Olivia so she could represent Spain, which it did in mid-January 2016.
Adrià, 31, comes from Barcelona, but has trained in London and Madrid, and he and Olivia are still living in Montréal at present.
Formerly partnered with Sara Hurtado, Adrià won six senior international medals, five Spanish national titles, finished 13th at Sochi 2014 and 11th in that year's International Skating Union (ISU) Championships.
Sara and Adrià were the first duo to compete for Spain in an ISU event and to qualify for a Winter Olympics.
Their best result as a pair was fifth in the European Championships in 2015, the same year they came 14th in a World Championship, but in other international competition, Adrià and Sara rarely failed to make the top 10.
These included the GP France (fourth and eighth), the GP Skate Canada (eighth), the CS Autumn Classic (fifth), the CS Golden Spin and the Bavarian Open (third in each), and the Cup of Nice (third and second).
Adrià did not take part in Pyeongchang, although Sara Hurtado did, with Kirill, but he and Olivia have made the podium 14 times and are usually in the top six or, at least, the top eight, except in the two World Championships they have danced in together.
They withdrew from the 2020-2021 Worlds, and the previous year's competition was cancelled due to the pandemic, but as a duo, their glittering track record means Olivia's first-ever Olympics, Adrià's second and his first with Olivia, might just have them contributing to Spain's medal count in February.
Laura Barquero and Marco Zandron
This figure-skating pair's career is only just taking off, although we may not have seen anything yet: Home from their first European Championships a week ago in Tallinn, Estonia, their 9th place means they have guaranteed a slot for Spain in next year's event.
Laura, 20 and Marco, 23 admitted to having been nervous, which led to their making a handful of mistakes that proved expensive in points terms – a hefty fall in the triple flip, and failing to complete the triple salchow + double toe and triple toe – but had they avoided these errors, it is likely they would have finished in a much higher position.
“We were nervous, but no more so than in other competitions – we don't really know what happened,” Laura confessed at the end of their performance.
“It simply wasn't our day.
“We fought through to the final and came away 9th, which is a good result, given that it's our début.”
Three weeks after Tallinn, they will be making another début – not just as a duo, but for their country: Laura and Marco will be the first Spaniards ever to compete in the pairs figure-skating at the Winter Olympics.
They've got off to a great start, which would have been greater still if it had been 'their day'; we've seen what they're capable of, so let's hope they keep their nerves in check in Peking.
Even if they don't, or they miss bringing home a medal despite complete confidence in themselves, few would expect them to achieve significant results at their 'maiden' games, but their youth means they'll be good for a few more Winter Olympics yet, by which time they'll have amassed considerable experience at global level.
Definitely a dancing duo to watch for the future.
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