In 1986, the first badminton initiation school was launched in Huelva, which operated in the small gymnasium of the then La Orden High School Institute. That was an idea from the former physical education teacher, Paco Ojeda. It was quite a gamble, because in a city that, sportingly, lives by and for the Recreativo de Huelva, it was an experience to activate a school to teach little people to move with a badminton racket, and also make it something fun.
Only three years passed before, given the success of the idea, the IB La Orden badminton club was founded, which included students, teachers, staff, mothers and fathers and directors of the institute.
When a girl named Carolina was born in the neighborhood on June 15, 1993, badminton was already a sport that dozens of her neighbors practiced. La Orden is one of those hard-working and humble neighborhoods, in a city like Huelva with its scarce 140,000 inhabitants and always with that big-town atmosphere in its streets.
in that neighborhood little Carolina grew up, to whom her parents took one day to see how this strange sport was played that was not practiced with a ball, but rather you had to throw an object called a shuttlecock over a net similar to that of volleyball.
Carolina was 12 years old the first time she picked up a badminton racket, and she has never put it down. It is true that for the children of the La Orden neighborhood this is such a normalized sport that it is striking how their streets come to a standstill when their most illustrious neighbor competes. And there have also been some important conditions, such as the fact that the city team, which was renamed IES La Orden and is now Recreativo IES La Orden, installed its operations headquarters in the Diego Lobato sports center, a ten-minute walk away. from the institute where she was born, and where the teenager Carolina studied her particular Secondary School.
stood out from the beginning
In a neighborhood with dozens of girls like her with a racket in her hand, Carolina’s style and personality did not go unnoticed by her coaches. She had not turned 13 when she debuted in international competitions in an Under’15 tournament held in Brussels in 2005, and two years later she was already international with Spain.
In his first training camp with the Spanish team he met Fernando Rivas, his eternal coach, and with whom he has managed to ensure that badminton gains followers every year in countries like Spain and the Netherlands. That seemed only reserved for Asian players, who until she picked up a racket, walked around the courts and won tournaments without breaking a sweat, just like the Russians do with synchronized swimming or India with cricket.
At 14 years old, it was already clear that the girl from Huelva called Carolina would be, for the rest, Carolina Marín, who at 31 years old this Wednesday received the news that she was being awarded the Princess of Asturias while she was training. She called her mother, she hung up the phone and continued training. Of course, she has admitted that she had to stop and that she started crying.
But before that, before the three World Cups, the Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro and the seven European titles, he won the U19 European Championship in Finland (2011) and won bronze at the Junior World Cup in Taipei (2011). Not everything in his life has been a sporting bed of roses, injuries aside, and in 2012 he had to watch the Olympic Games on TV because he did not achieve the minimum mark to travel to London.
Returning to her dominance over the Asian women, on April 10, 2014 she entered the world top ten. She was the first non-Asian-born player to achieve this.
And so the successes went by, that in Huelva they have continued with the closeness of supporting little Carolina, to whom someone, mistakenly, advised her to shout on the track to disconcert her rivals. Something that she has wanted to clarify – without much success – by talking about a kind of catharsis of energy that she releases with those screams.
His particular “doping”
Carolina works with data in addition to her physical effort. She analyzes each rival and simulates matches with them before facing each other on the court. She has known how to adapt to technological changes, but above all she “dopes” herself with the shrimp and ham that she enjoys in Huelva. Other dishes that she likes are salmon, omelette, salads and pasta with vegetables.
In sports, where each player has their own superstition, the girl from the La Orden neighborhood always carries with her a medal of the Virgen del Rocío, whom she visits every time she sets foot in Huelva. As happens when she goes to the village, this Wednesday she said she had “no words” after being awarded the Princess of Asturias, an award that was “a dream that has now come true.”
Marín thanked his team, family and, above all, his father and mother for giving him “the opportunity” to move to Madrid when he was only 14 years old to demonstrate his potential in “such an unknown sport.” “Thanks to all the successes I have had, I have achieved that badminton is talked about in Spain and that is a great pride,” he admitted.
Her city idolizes her, while pampering her. She named her most important sports pavilion after her, and this Wednesday she celebrated her Princess of Asturias as a promotion of the Recreativo, the other Recreativo, that of football.
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