Alberto Ginés: "My father is a hero. He spent hours and hours on the road helping me."

BarcelonaAlberto Ginés (Cáceres, 2002) hangs from a wall with one hand and waits for his photo to be taken. His life is spent hanging from the walls. In 2021, he surprised everyone by becoming the first Olympic climbing champion in history at the Tokyo Olympic Games, when the sport was just making its debut on the Olympic calendar and few people knew who this 18-year-old from Extremadura was. The athlete has been living in Catalonia for years because he wanted to train at the Sant Cugat CAR (Car Park) in Catalonia. A different young man, he has learned Catalan and shows a curiosity for the world that goes beyond climbing walls. This summer, he read De Vigan, Dostoevsky, and Murakami, at the end of a season in which he won World Cup gold, although he narrowly missed out on a World Cup medal. By one move. By a centimeter.

A great success and a disappointment. It has been a demanding season.

— The goal of the season was to win the World Cup, and I achieved it. It's the tournament of consistency, and it's a great achievement. I also had the goal of making the podium at the World Championships, but that just slipped away. It's bittersweet because my worst result of the entire season was fourth place. And right in the World Championships... I finished fourth! And cruelly, since I tied for third. And to break the tie, they looked at the results of the semifinals, where I slipped. I think it's also a season in which I've learned a lot and that has helped me see that I'm at the top, that I can fight to be the best again.

How do you handle situations like these, where you narrowly miss out on a medal?

— I've done my calculations while I'm on vacation, racking my brain... and I'd say that since September 2023, my worst result in any World Cup or any competition has been finishing fourth. But winning gold is decided by details. It's not a cliché; a single move makes the difference. The night after the final, I woke up in the middle of the night with a dream at four in the morning: I was convinced I hadn't competed yet and could do it again. It's frustrating when you see that you've lost a medal like that.

In your case, you already won Olympic gold at your first major event, in 2021. I understand that it wasn't easy to handle after that.

— My first two seasons on the international circuit were easy, so to speak. Not in the sense that you shouldn't try hard, but easy in the sense that everything fell into place. I went to the Pre-Olympic tournament and won. I went to the Olympics and reached the final. In the final, I won. Even in my first World Cup season, I finished second; everything fell into place. And then reality hit, where you had to stay motivated, understand that things often take a lot of effort. There have been seasons when nothing went right, when you had to rethink things, with problems... moments that make you stronger.

It's also a life lesson, right?

— You have to learn to deal with the fact that we don't always win. That we don't always have a good time. And you have to manage not to think you're the best the day you triumph. You also discover that many people expect you to always win. And you also have to learn to deal with defeat. You always learn, win or lose. You learn from yourself and you learn from your rivals.

Many people are surprised by how, before a final, rivals study the course together. They analyze possible routes, in a healthy competition.

— Yes, it happens. Rivalry exists, right? If to win a medal you need a rival to fall and they do, well, you're happy, of course. But we have a very healthy rivalry because we know that once we get up there, we're alone. It's about doing well ourselves, improving, surpassing ourselves. We can share what we see, because in climbing, rivalry is usually positive; our rivalry isn't as aggressive as it is in everyday society. We still have some beautiful values in climbing.

A key figure in your career is David Macià, your coach. A highly respected figure in climbing in Catalonia.

— He helps me with everything. When you're up there, you don't see everything; I need his eyes. We first got in touch in 2013 when I was a kid, and he gave me advice from afar. And in 2018, I came to live in Catalonia to train with him, since he was a role model. When there were competitions, I went with him and his sons, Lluc and Lau. I remember the first few years when we had to call him, I didn't want to talk; I was embarrassed. And my father would talk. He commanded a lot of respect from me.

Your father was already climbing in the wild. He's a key figure. How many hours did your father spend behind the wheel?

— My father is a hero. He spent hours and hours behind the wheel for work, but pursuing our dreams meant he spent even more time on the road, helping me. I'd leave school in Cáceres and get in the car, and off we went! We'd spend the night there in Burgos and then continue to the south of France to go to a climbing wall in the Pau area. We had to go to the south of France and come back on Sundays, tired; I'd fall asleep in class. And if we could, we'd fly to Italy to spend four days training, because back then, in Spain, there were no high-quality climbing walls for training. We have them now, but they could be even better. Many of the ones we have now were designed to promote sport, to get people involved, but high-performance training requires something more.

Climbing has changed...

— Yes, when my dad started rock climbing in the 1980s, everything was different. And they couldn't imagine having climbing walls. Grandma was afraid of climbing, so Dad let him, but when he saw how I was climbing everywhere, his eyes lit up. I remember one day he said I had to buy some climbing shoes. I didn't know what he meant! I thought it was some kind of costume imitating a cat's foot, hairy and with claws. When I got a rubber shoe, I said: what is this? And look, that beginning, almost like a game, is now my life.

And outside of climbing, what's your life like? You used to say you wanted to study physiotherapy, but now you're sharing a lot of books on social media.

— Not anymore. I've changed my mind. I don't see myself in a closed office or consulting room in the future. Who knows what I'll do in the future? Now I'm very interested in literature. I read a lot when I travel. When I'm on vacation, I buy them. When I go to a competition, I take one. tablet, but yes, I am in a phase where I am looking to learn a lot through literature.

And outside of sports, you've received several attacks on social media for criticizing VOX politicians or expressing your opinion on issues like homophobia.

— On Twitter, or whatever it's called now, there was everything, a very toxic environment. I quit it two years ago and I'm happier now. I can't leave Instagram because of brand promotions, but social media sometimes... well... people ask me why I say certain things. But denouncing the genocide in Gaza or defending the LGBTI community doesn't even seem political to me... it seems like humanity, common sense. Anyway, it's the world we live in, where humanity and values are being lost. I also see things I don't like in climbing. People who want to climb to show off, to win, who enter a climbing gym without mountain culture, without having been in nature, without knowing anything about the historical names of climbing. I like the classic values of climbing.