Went by so, so fast, the years 10. The past decade began with a dream made real in July of 2010, and, always chained, end of period, the end of an illusion. Two months before his end, a kenyan with slippers atomic, the ne va plus of the technology, ran 42,195 kilometres, a marathon, in less than two hours, 1hr 59m 40s. Announced the end of an era, the dawn of other, and all were eager to weigh in, because it looks to see the future. Are 10 years in which everything was possible. Scale it comes in, the third decade of the TWENTY-first century, that reeks of pessimism and technological vital.
The 10 years were opened with the goal with which the whole of Spain dreamed of for 80 years, a both who claimed the national team won the world championship in football, a concept that until very few years before fell within the category of utopian. Was the 11 of July of 2010 when they were already on the point of blowing the 11 of the night. It was the goal of Iniesta in extra time, 1-0, who defeated the Netherlands in the final in Johannesburg, south Africa.
The same day, the 11th of July, about six hours before, a few thousand miles to the north, almost 13,000 in the French Alps, Alberto Contador makes it clear to the fans that would be difficult to win his third Tour de France. Despite all their attempts to attack, in the climbing stage from Morzine to Avoriaz, the climber from Pinto succumbs to Andy Schleck. Effectively, the Tour was so complicated Counter that, despite reaching the yellow to Paris two weeks later with a few seconds of advantage he lost it a few months later by a few picograms of clenbuterol.
The positive Counter was the song that heralded the end of the party, the arrival of the sobriety of the cycling in the Spanish Tour after two decades in a row, the of Indurain, 90’s, and the next, in which riders spaniards had won nine of the 20 Tours played, and 13 granted, discounted seven lost by Armstrong after the sanction imposed by the UCI on October 22, 2012.
In the 10 that are going just Armstrong, Contador, Bolt and Phelps; he rises Tiger Woods; it shines in its heyday Simone Limitations; they remain, always, Nadal and Federer, Messi and Cristiano, Valverde; arise Curry, who transformed the basketball of the NBA, and Marc Marquez; turn off Michael Schumacher. The Champions league is half Spanish; cycling, colombian,; NBA global with a Spanish accent, and Spain, the world champions of football because he became owner of the ball and Iniesta, from Albacete and Barça, scored a goal.
The technological utopia, that fascination stupid for everything new, as if the progress off that, and the progressives, as well, stole the imagination of the sport, part of its capacity to thrill, the crux of the issue for many fans: slippers, VAR, submission to the bigdata to make decisions, tactics and techniques, stadiums with air conditioning, wearables with physiological data immediate for the athlete to hesitate, and not know how to test your body… The pinganillo and the potentiometers or the marginal gains of the Sky, the devil to many, is nothing in a world that is created to be, without more, referred to in a screen, and in slow motion if possible.
Of everything that has happened 17 times could be worth a summary.
Goal of Iniesta (Johannesburg, 11-7-2010)
The Spanish football found its style, that was born heir to the total football Dutch, and a friend of the ball and the risk, a tiki-taka more human than physical, without anger, before that of the catenaccio, and the accounting, the football world asked for it as a model, and the Spanish found a date and a time at which you can say: we all remember where we were and with who and what we were doing that Sunday far and so hot near midnight, so fabulous. Stopped by Iker, he cried out Iniesta.
Grand Slam Rafa Nadal (New York, 13-9-2010)
Rafa Nadal lifts the cup in his first u.s. Open. TIMOTHY A. CLARY Getty
A September night warm in New York, the first year of the decade, with 24 years old just turned, Rafa Nadal defeated Novak Djokovic and reached a height that very few players in history have reached. The US Open that you pointed it was the tenth largest of his career, and with the title new yorker already had one, at least, of every Grand Slam, six Roland Garros, two Wimbledon, one Australian, an olympic gold and three Cups Davis: the complete assortment. But don’t stop there, it grew and kept on growing, evolving, changing their game, as animated by a desire of excessiveness inimitable, avoiding the curse of all large, whose future always felt achantado by the past. In 2019, Nadal modified his service and now earns more points almost anyone with it, which allows you to save game time and energies, and it already has 33 years. The left-hander from Manacor closes the decade still hungry, with 19 Grand Slam titles, only one of the 20 of Federer, and only will think about retiring if you do it before Djokovic and the swiss. Then it will be the first Spanish athlete, and, perhaps, always the one, that reaches the sky.
Accident of Schumacher (Méribel, 29-12-2013)
A year after retiring for the second time of the circuits, the best pilot of formula 1 history was made when a stone skiing in Méribel, [in the French Alps] a christmas and survives with serious brain injuries. It is the farewell social wild of a driver who broke all records —seven world titles, 91 grand prizes victorious, 13 major awards in a single season, in 2004, which made him heptacampeón—. Sign of the times, perhaps, the fate cruelly deprived Schumacher, who will turn 51 years old on the 3rd of January, of a farewell of life commensurate with their greatness sport, a death like that of Ayrton Senna, piloting, he would have become myth eternal
Champions league: Final Atlético-Real Madrid (Lisbon, 24-5-2014)
The Madrid players celebrate their Tenth in Lisbon in 2014. alejandro ruesga
Looking for Florentino Perez the creation of a Super league of European competition that should end up with the plateau of low growth in which move the television rights. Perhaps the president of the Madrid inspires both the tremendous domain that Spanish clubs exerted on the Champions league much of the decade as he despairs the monopoly of the English clubs in the last edition, with a final pure Premiership, the competition that more money goes for television. Perhaps the most significant moments of the Spanish dominion —six of the 10 Champions, four of the Madrid, which led to 13 of his total, two of Barca— were the two finals they faced the Real and Atletico, two derbies in madrid with victoria white in both. The more hard the mattress was, surely, the first, the of the 14, which were closer to even in 1974 playing for the first time the cup thanks to a goal from Godin. In the minute 93, the goal of Ramos returned to making sad truth the curse is athletic, which makes the reality the end is always imitating fiction.
Jump brothers Gasol (New York, 15-2-2015)
Jump the brothers Gasol. JASON SZENES EFE
The basketball is the moon in Madison Square Garden, and two brothers from Barcelona, very high, Pau and Marc Gasol, to jump to reach it, to touch it. Even greater, Pau: the Spanish basketball, already accustomed to the late olympic and world titles, reaches higher than ever before; the NBA leaves, already, to be a local entertainment vision a must for the rest of the universe to become, in a global show for a global audience. Not stayed there for the brothers. After the initial jump from party All Stars 2015, Marc came finally to Pau, owner of two rings champion, and succeeded, in the summer of 19, the ring champion with the Raptors and a second world title leading to the Spanish team.
Lorenzo-Rossi-Marquez (Cheste, 8-11-2015)
Lorenzo celebrates his third World Cheste. JULIAN ROJAS
Embedded among the six titles of Moto GP Marc Marquez shines the third of Jorge Lorenzo, the, 2015, the season that sums up better than any all the drama and conflict of the decade rider. It was the year of the last breath of Valentino Rossi, who fought for the title until the last GP, Yamaha against Yamaha, in Cheste; it was, and neither knew it then, the latest title from Lorenzo, who has retired, a young man, a few weeks ago; and it all happened perhaps by the will of Marquez, which, after that year, gave no respite to anyone. All ceased to exist except for the Catalan driver of the Honda.
Garbiñe Muguruza beats Serena (Paris, 4-6-2016)
Garbiñe receives the congratulations of Serena. MARTIN BUREAU AFP
Arantxa won at Roland Garros, and three times, and in New York, but never could with Wimbledon; Conchita won on the grass of London, but I always choked the earth of Paris. Two decades later, Garbiñe Muguruza, they did both, winning in successive years, Roland Garros and Wimbledon. The character of both titanic as symbolic of the victories of Muguruza, it reflects the name of the opponents defeated, one after another, in both finals, the sisters Venus and Serena Williams, something like the Graf and Navratilova in the TWENTY-first century. After losing to Serena in the Wimbledon final 2015, Muguruza defeated, the younger of the Williams in the final liberating of Roland Garros in 2016 (and he was prevented from match then the record of 22 individual titles Graf: it took two years to overcome it, because with 23), and Venus at Wimbledon in 2017.
Curry-LeBron (Oakland, 19-6-2016)
Curry (d) and Lebron fighting for the ball in the last game of the ‘playoff’ of 2016. Getty
Curry dances and pulls away and all the teams in the NBA want to be like their Warriors, and the atomic bomb, the weapon of mass destruction, since there is a pivot that crushes the basket but sharp, light, nimble encestadores of three-pointers. Curry and LeBron have marked the decade as Magic and Bird defined the 90’s. There are No howitzers but arrows, but poetic justice, old warriors who do not give up, and LeBron with Cavaliers earned Curry the end of the end of 2016, with a comeback that will always be remembered.
Phelps, the last stroke (Rio de Janeiro, 13-8-2016)
Phelps is fired after the release of styles at River 16. Anadolu Agency-Getty
In Tokyo will not be Michael Phelps, and will be the first time in the century that in a few Games will not participate in the major predator of Baltimore, who gave his last kick, olympic the 13 of August 16 in the pool of green water of the River. His absence leaves orphans to the accountants, who from Athens 2004 had it easy with the swimmer american, maximum medallist in the last four Games. Is the olympic’s most successful in history. To him alone, a animal olympic unique, with the help in the relay of some side, has won more gold medals (23) than all the sport Spanish (19) since 2004.
Spanish, nine of 17 (River, 21-8-16)
Blanca Fernández Ochoa, with the medal Games of Albertville 92. Getty
The decade began with the overthrow of Marta Dominguez of the pedestal and the symbol of the sportsman in spain (Operation Greyhound, a sanction for a doping offense) and ended with the death of Blanca Fernández Ochoa, the pioneer, the first olympic medallist of hispaniola, which it merged with its mountain, a starry night in August. The glory of the athlete is short-lived, but not his example or his footprint. The memory remains like the smell on your hands after cleaning fish, and even grow in a decade, which could also be dubbed as the of the constant struggle of the woman athlete by the space which the man denies, the decade of Caster Semenya, the athlete at the that do not cease to compete as a woman, that is, the decade of the Rio Games, where the Spanish women won more than half of the medals of the entire team (9 of 17) and four of them (Maialen Chourraut, Ruth Beitia, Carolina Marín and Mireia Belmonte) they came back with the gold. And on December 19, with Megan Rapinoe as the star global, still continues the fight for women players to get a collective agreement that recognizes that you can become pregnant, and they respect the law.
saying Goodbye to Bolt (London, 13-8-2017)
Bolt is injured in the last post from Jamaica. Getty
Between Rafa Nadal (four) and Usain Bolt (three) have hit seven of the 10 titles of best athlete world year of daily L’equipe, and that’s the big, huge, years, athlete jamaican belong to the previous decade, in 2008 and 2009, when they beat two times each, in two finals, a World cup and a few Games, the world records of 100m and 200m. Bolt did not come back to beat some records impossible to for him, but he became the big star of the last two Games, London and Rio, and also was able to demonstrate that it could not, and could not finish his last race, the last relay of the relay in London 17. The fans, deprived of to feel again the thrill of seeing a few 100m knowing that the impossible can end up being possible, and always wonderful.
Ronaldo-Messi, last Classic (Camp Nou, 6-5-2018)
Messi takes over a decade to astound; and as for Nadal, he makes that his rivals call Federer and Djokovic and be as persistent as he is, Messi will accompany the permanent comparison with the other contemporary phenomenon, Cristiano Ronaldo. The left-handed argentine won this fall, his sixth Ballon d’or; Cristiano is five, and if it has been more volatile and traveler, Messi has not been moved from Barca, a team that no longer is the Barça of Guardiola, but the Barca of Messi, that everything fagocita and that makes you play all as he wants to play. May 6, 2018, without which no one could imagine, faced in his last Classic, the Spanish duel that both led to the land individual. Tied for the teams, they also: each scored a goal.
Valverde, rainbow 38 (Innsbruck, 30-9-2018)
Valverde on the podium in Innsbruck. Tim de Waele Getty
it Would be easy to describe to Valverde as a dinosaur, a fossil that breathes, a survivor of the great ice age of the sport that ended with the old man and his culture in the previous change of decade. However, when he won the World cycling in Austria at 38 years old, and nobody older has ever done, Valverde, who carries all the weight of the cycling Spanish, demonstrated a tremendous ability to reinvent itself, a unique blend of spirit and will of youth with experience and knowledge. And your smile happy child, and their tears, will return probably next to mount Fuji this July in the Games.
The fifth Masters of the Tiger (Augusta, 14-4-2019)
Tiger Woods his fifth green jacket. Andrew Redington Getty
you Can more the wish of a child that all life is dirty and grey, and their setbacks and traps, or so you should think of Tiger Woods, nothing more start to ride in a poster upon his bed, and wrote all the titles, the 18, Jack Nicklaus ‘ tournament of the Grand Slam, and a promise: I will 19. It was put to the task in the last century, in 1997, winning his first Masters just meet the 21 years, and 11 years later, in 2008, already was going 14. Impossible not to think that the record of Nicklaus, would inevitably fall. However, between a spirit and a head that brought him to the game, to hyperactivity and sexual to the risk of addiction to opioid drugs, and various back injuries and knee that threatened to leave him an invalid before the age of 40, the decade that followed was pure disaster. And, as in the moralizing tales, when no one believed in him, nor in his dreams, Tiger Woods became Tiger Woods, the golfer most complete of the history. If the body rebelled, the head was reinforced and last April, 11 years after his last great, added a 15 slam to his career, his fifth green jacket. Has complied with the 44, but few are betting against you.
Egan and the triple-colombian (Paris, 28-7-19)
Egan Bernal, yellow in Paris in 2019. KAZUHIRO NOGI AFP
Entering without fear and head through the door that was ajar Nairo Quintana in 2013 (second in his first Tour, the cycling colombian (and a little ecuadorian) has been made with the global power in the decade. There is No great stage race that does not succeed, a colombian. The victory of the very young Egan Bernal on the last Tour, the race that most resisted despite the fact that there, in the 80’s, he began to write Lucho Herrera the legend of the beetles, he completed a grand slam cycling and culminated the apotheosis of a movement that ignited Nairo, with their triumphs at the Turn of the 14 and the Back 16, and continued Carapaz, the vecinísimo Ecuador, with the Rotation of the 19.
Maratonauta Eliud Kipchoge (Vienna, 12-10-2019)
Eliud Kipchoge, of white, after hares and car in Vienna. ALEX PULLED Getty
Lamenting the romans that already then, in the first century, the theatre was only a repetition, decay, and cried, what times of the greeks. All young people say that when they get old they never tell you what they told their grandparents, that in my times everything was better. But something similar happens when Kipchoge, maratonauta in the Prater of Vienna, the setting, futuristic, reached the moon, or Everest, the marathon in under two hours (1h 59m 40s). The older ones lamented the help of a pair of shoes on that more than running, throwing tireless; some veterans were saying that there is no longer a hope, that the last great record of the athletics will be the of the 800m of another kenyan, David Rudisha, who in the final of London 2012 was nothing to break the barrier of 100 seconds (1m 40,91 s), and did so without hares, and no magical slippers. A front runner unstoppable; young people do not understand how the old ones are always just as whiny and prepare for it within 20 years to be able to say, commenting on the record, bionic, that athletics has lost the authenticity of the years of Kipchoge. But the romans had it right.
The revolution Days (Stuttgart, 13-10-2019)
Exercise on the floor of Simone Days. Matthias Schrader AP
he Spoke Gervasio Deferred marveled at Simone Bill, gymnast, in Rio 16. The best gymnast in Spanish history praised in the muscles and the strength of the american who beat all records, and his talent and his art, the of a Comaneci, said, that jump half a meter more, that routine does what to other them is impossible. You spoke so Deferred, and it seemed that was exaggerating, but it was short. Days it was that and much more, as the world amazed and watched in Stuttgart the bridge of the Pillar of 2019, which the gymnast american, 22 years old, took advantage of not only adding five gold medals to his crop in the world championships, and now they are 19 (25 medals in total because the judges always deny the full, the sixth gold of the bar, although try to reinvent the apparatus), more than none, and none in the story, and four olympic gold medals also, but to show his boldness without limit and incredible capacity for improvement. After an 18 sabbatical, in which it had to, anyway, to withstand the pressure that led him to declare that she too, like most of his companions, had suffered sexual abuse, in the 19, to Days 1, their double irons, and the hop Bill 2, the gymnast, that he changed coaches to find new limits, and put his name to two other unique exercises and almost unattainable for others, the Bill 3 (the triple double on floor, double deadly with three flips) and Days 4, the output of the bar with a double deadly with two pirouettes. Bill is saying goodbye to everyone as queen of Tokyo, and patenting two more exercises. In this work, as only yielded to the audacity, without calculation or fear, and I just wish that in the life to leave his body to be a witness of what this does, what he or she believes.
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