Iris Tió: "As a child, I would leave training screaming with excitement."

Sant Cugat del VallèsThis has been the summer of Iris Tió's (Barcelona, ​​​​2002) breakthrough. At the World Swimming Championships in Singapore, she won six medals, one of them the long-awaited gold medal in the solo.Free. No Catalan woman had ever won this medal, the last major hurdle in local artistic swimming. After a few days of rest in Priorat, Tió is back in the water. A few days before returning to work, she receives the ARA at the Sant Cugat High Performance Center, where she usually spends eight hours a day training. Key hours to understand the success of a woman who defines herself as shy but with clear ideas. Once she gets in the pool, she leaves no one indifferent.

It doesn't hurt to have to go into the pool on vacation, too, does it?

— No, no. I always like being near the water; I never get tired of it. It's where I'm happiest. But it's true that after the World Championships, I needed two weeks of relaxation in Priorat. It was crazy.

What do you feel when you look at that freestyle gold medal? The great women who paved the way and inspired you, like Gemma Mengual, Ona Carbonell, and Andrea Fuentes, didn't win it. You did.

— I didn't expect it, that I was going to win gold. It's true that I gave 100% in every training session. And I wanted it, that medal. I just didn't expect it to be in Singapore. But even before I left, I had the feeling that something big would happen, but not at that level. It was a strange feeling.

What was different from other competitions?

— Well, I did what I do every day in training. I placed a lot of emphasis on the performance. Perhaps it was less technically difficult, but the routine had a good balance between artistic and technical points. The rivals focused on the technical difficulty, performing tough leg exercises. And I looked for the beautiful side of synchronized dancing. The artistic side. I think that was the key.

He talks about the artistic side. He comes from a family with a long artistic tradition in music.

— I feel music deeply. I'm a sensitive person. Maybe this helps me express myself better. I really like working on staging and doing a bit of acting, so to speak. When I jump into the pool, I like to excite others. Outside the water, I'm a shy and reserved person, but inside, I like to express myself to the fullest, and I think that's how I won over the judges at the World Cup.

His parents are musicians. His grandmother, too.

— I come from a family of artists, especially my grandmother [Mercè Capdevila y Gaya]. She's a composer of contemporary music. She was a pioneer in electroacoustic music. My mother is a violinist. My father is a clarinetist. And I've always listened to a lot of classical music at home. That's why I feel it, the music. I carry it inside.

Why didn't he go his own way?

— I tried the violin, the clarinet, I went to my mom's music school, I started singing in choirs... But I was bored because we had to sit and sing all day. And I had a lot of energy and needed to move. When Mozart played in my house, I'd put on a princess dress and dance. I'd jump. I've always loved dancing. And I love being in the water, so it was all written in stone. I had to do synchronized dancing. It was love at first sight. Just think, I'd come out of practice screaming with excitement. That's how my parents saw it clearly, this would be my career.

She grew up surrounded by talented women who paved the way. She does the same, but with a different discipline. How did your grandmother experience it?

— She loves what I do. She always follows me around at all the championships. She's one of those who keeps track of all the scores, including those of her opponents. She watches it on TV if she's far away, and she supports me.

How did you get into artistic swimming if you came from a family where sport wasn't important?

— In a very simple way. We were eating at home watching TV and saw Gemma Mengual doing artistic swimming. She'd won a medal or something, and my parents asked me if I'd like to try this sport. I said yes. And we went to watch a competition live. It was fascinating. I was in the stands and wanted to jump in the pool. The club closest to our house was CN Kallípolis, so that's where it all started.

At the last Paris Olympics, China won gold with Anna Tarrés as coach. The United States took silver with Andrea Fuentes as coach, and the bronze went to Spain. Tarrés, Fuentes, and almost the entire Spanish team have played at Kallípolis. It's a special place.

— It is. It's a club that has made history. But when I joined, I had no intention of going anywhere. I wasn't thinking about podiums or winning medals; I just did it to have fun. Once I started training at the High Performance Center, things changed. There are times when things change. The same thing happened the day Mayuko Fujiki suggested I be the team's soloist. I was really excited because it was my dream, since I was little. alone at the club.

After the Paris Games, Mayuko's time as a coach came to a close. Andrea Fuentes returned home. How did she experience it?

— It took us a little by surprise because we were euphoric about the medal. It had been 12 years since we'd made it onto the team podium. And we did it thanks to Mayuko, who created a unique team. But we were told there was a change. It was a surprise, but Andrea is from home, she knows us. She's a role model for all of us.

When she talks about her training, she always speaks in positive terms. I remember when Anna Tarrés said years ago that to win medals, you had to suffer, because you had to face teams with military discipline like the Russians or the Chinese. There's a huge change in the way she approaches it. She wants to win and enjoy it at the same time.

— I think the key to success is when I'm having a good time. I do my best. Sometimes, when I'm most carefree, that's when I do my best. And I think Andrea Fuentes has known how to find that path, and that's why I'm very happy with the entire coaching team we have now, because it aligns with my values and principles. I consider myself a very hard-working person, and I understand that it takes a lot of effort to get there, but it's not about masochistic effort. You have to love what you do, and Andrea cares about that. She tells us about the things we do well, it gives us strength.

He won the gold with an exercise that surely reminds him of the Paris Games, as he performs to the rhythm of the version of the Hymn in love that Céline Dion sang at the opening ceremony...

— When I heard it in Paris, I was very moved; it was my favorite part of the entire opening. And on my way back from the Games, I picked it up again, listened to it, and the idea came to me. I had to use it in an exercise in onlyIt's perfect. And this year, while looking for music for the free solo, I suggested it to Andrea. She said yes right away. And it was easy; the routine came together right away. Within a day, I had almost the entire routine figured out. I was in the pool, moving my body, testing, and everything felt very natural. That music brings me so much joy; it inspires me. It's true that during the season, it was hard to work on the routine, since it's not all about the arms out of the water. You have to work on your apnea and your legs. And Andrea has had to remind me a lot that when I focus on the more physical aspect, I lose expressiveness. She told me that our mission is to be able to show the world this unique way of swimming that I have. And I think that at the World Championships, we managed to find the balance between being able to physically withstand the difficulty and the apnea, but also being able to defend the artistic side.

—

Andrea always says that she is thrilled in the pool.

— Maybe it's because of how I experience it. I wouldn't do synchronized dancing if I weren't happy. I've learned so much from this sport; it's made me happy and made me who I am. I guess that's why I convey things the way I do. When you move someone, people remember that, right? And they remember you. And deep down, I think that's what we want to do. Many people have told me they were moved by how we defended it, by the choreography. Andrea and I worked hard on the artistic side, and we even worked with Alberto del Campo, a Cirque du Soleil artist who's currently doing a show in Las Vegas. He helped us work on how to move emotions with our faces, with expressiveness. He told us we had to emphasize intention, how we do things, what we feel.

How does your success at the World Cup in Singapore change things? Will you now have to compete under more pressure?

— Our sport isn't like football, where whether they win, lose, draw, play or not, they're always on TV, they're always in the spotlight, and they always have all kinds of support, right? In our sport, if we don't win, we don't get in the media. And then, of course, that's how this kind of pressure exists. But I think positively. Now I've seen what I can achieve. And I'm eager to keep improving. I'm already eager to win more medals at the next European Championship. To show that I can maintain this high level for several years. What happened at the World Cup was very tough; no one expected it. Maybe more pressure will come, but I think I can improve even more. What I did at the World Cup wasn't my best. I'm calm; when I get back to training, I'll be able to improve even more. And that's what I'm eager to do.

In Singapore, he won gold in the mixed doubles, a new competition because until recently, men didn't swim artistically. What was it like working with Dennis González?

— It was magnificent because I had done all the choreography possible and was missing that duet. I really enjoyed it because, unlike the women's duet, this one is much more demanding. There are many more hybrids, which is what we do with our legs, without breathing, which is a very high level. This duet is less demanding in terms of apnea, but it has many possibilities for expression. The staging is key, and I love that. Dennis is very good, very good. In the women's duet, we're like mirrors; we do the same thing. In the mixed duet, there's interaction; it's more theatrical. I'm happy that the federations make it easier for the kids to enter that world. We've never had any problems. We're helping them a lot because sometimes some kids train less because they're few in number, and they're left out of the team dynamics. We try to get them to work hard, to contribute... I hope one day they can form an all-boys team.

Do you think a lot about the Los Angeles Games?

— Calm down, right? (smiles). We have to take it step by step. Next year will be calm, but then we'll have the World Cup pre-Olympic qualifiers. Of course, we have the 2028 Games on our minds, but our job is to work every day. I'm one of those who takes the European Championships and the World Cup very seriously, but the Games... They have an added bonus. Just think, I made my debut in Tokyo. And they were sad games, everything was restricted, no fans, with the pandemic... But Paris was beautiful.

She lives day to day. She studies communications at university and competes. How do she see herself in the future?

— Now, I'd say that being a coach isn't something I'm interested in. I think I'll always be involved with this sport, because I am who I am thanks to synchronized swimming. But we'll decide what to do later.