"We have psychologists to help us deal with the pressure of obtaining good sports results"

Núria Marquès: "The Olympic Games in Paris meant that I could have my family and friends there, cheering me on, because it was close to home. And that, compared to Rio and Tokyo, has been wonderful."

All three arrived at the Rectorat building with smiles on their faces. They were outgoing and very down-to-earth, although they had competed only a few weeks before against some of the best athletes in the world. All three combine their studies at the UAB with their duties as elite athletes, thanks to a pioneering UAB support programme for athletes: Tutoresport, which was first offered in the 1996/97 academic year.

Oscar is finishing his degree in Medicine and is an intern at the Parc Taulí Hospital in Sabadell, while Núria studies Physiotherapy and is doing her work placement in a physiotherapy centre; and Àfrica is in her last year of Nursing and is an intern in the Vall d’Hebron Hospital.

1. Why did you decide to study at university although you already had an excellent sports career?

Núria Marquès (NM): Because when the time comes to end my sports career, I will have something else I can turn to professionally. I imagine that after so many hours dedicated to swimming, once that ends, you are left with a huge void. Our life until now, particularly when we prepare for the Olympics, has been training and more training, and competing. We spend the whole day inside the pool! And when that ends, I always think that I will turn to physiotherapy.

Òscar Salguero (OS): In my case, I just really like studying medicine. And I want to become a doctor. My sports career will end, but I will still have medicine.

Àfrica Zamorano (AZ): I feel the same. I won’t always be an athlete, but I will still have nursing, which is a very nice profession that motivates me.

2. How do you manage to combine university with such high-level competitions? 

OS: You must be passionate and eager to work by objectives, to be able obtain, as in my case, a bronze in Paris. Establish your goal and work every day to reach it.

NM: The UAB offers us the Tutoresport programme, with the support of a specific tutor that can help us manage and combine our sports activities with studying. That definitively helps us a lot. Without the help of that pogramme, everything would have been more complicated. I am now living in the CAR Sant Cugat centre. Our timetables and competitions are difficult to combine with lectures.

AZ: When we don’t train, we study. And it is difficult to combine. A lot of effort is needed, but we manage to do it. Some lecturers told me that it was impossible to do both and that I should stop doing one or the other, because we travel a lot. But I am happy to have reached the final year of nursing, even if I have had to dedicate so many hours to swimming and high-level competitions.

OS: I also spent a year in which they told me combining sports and university was impossible, but in the end, I managed to do both. There was this one time that I wanted to avoid having problems at university, so I decided to skip 10 trainings and focus on the work placement I had to do, and everything worked out.

3. Are you under a lot of pressure to perform and obtain good results in your sport?

AZ: Yes, because you must continuously have good results if you want to receive grants and aids. You must stay at the top and obtain the scores you need to enter competitions. At 17, I collapsed under all of the pressure and in the end I needed help from a personal psychologist.

NM and OS: In our case, in the Paralympics, if we do not classify at least fourth, we do not receive money, and that is why there is so much pressure to reach a good position. We do receive salaries from the clubs we belong to (Núria, from Club Natació Sant Feliu; Òscar, from Club Natació Sabadell, and Àfrica, from Club Natació Sant Andreu) and also from some of our sponsors, but the main source of income comes from the Spanish Olympic Sports Association, the ADO grants.

4. That means you must also take good care of your mental health?

OS: Yes, we have psychologists for the team. They are crucial in helping us deal with the pressure, to not get upset when you don’t get the score you want, or when you injure yourself, or simply because you had a bad day, etc. The psychological support is necessary, without a doubt.

NM and AZ: Just like we must take care of our diet: we have nutritionists helping us and we cannot eat whatever we want; we also have to take care of our mental health.

5. In your cases, as paralympic athletes, do you feel duly recognised?

NM: Well, the truth is that we do feel a bit overlooked, except when the Paralympics are held. That is when we become more visible, but during the rest of the time, not really.

OS: And luckily, we finally managed to be broadcast on TVE’s Teledeporte channel, because at first, they had not planned on broadcasting it. In the end they agreed to air the competitions, and that was great because a lot more people could watch us, and we gained a lot of visibility.

6. The Paris games were your third Olympic Games, for all three of you, after Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. Where do the Paris Olympic Games stand, when compared to the other two?

NM: The Olympic Games in Paris meant that I could have my family and friends there, cheering me on, because it was close to home. And that, compared to Rio and Tokyo, has been wonderful. Seeing your whole family there, next to the pool cheering you on, is priceless. And celebrating winning a medal with them! It was all very exciting!

AZ and OS: Yes! Being able to celebrate it so close to home has helped us emotionally, because we had our loved ones with us.

 

The UAB is one of the universities in Catalonia with the greatest number of athletes participating in the Olympic Games 2024. In addition to the three swimmers interviewed here, several other UAB students won medals, including the members of the women’s water polo team (gold) and the men’s handball team (bronze).