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Zulia Calatayud, chronic asthma
sufferer and world champion
BY ANNE-MARIE
GARCIA—Special for Granma International—
ZULIA Calatayud is late for practice; she had to
stop at the hospital to take allergy tests.
November in Havana brings intense and unforgiving
heat and humidity for asthmatics, like this young
woman, world champion in the 800-meter race.
“There are things that neither medicine nor
science can explain,” comments her coach, Faustino
Hernández. “Zulia is an extraordinary athlete who
trains during asthma crises. You have to see it to
believe it.”
The 25-year-old leapt into world fame during the
World Championships in Helsinki this past August,
when she won the 800 meters with a time of
1:58.82, beating Moroccan Hasna Benhassi (1:59.42)
and Russian Tatyana Andrianova (1:59.60).
As
he waits for his pupil, Hernández comments that
“Zulia has really developed her lung capacity by
training with asthma, and moreover she has a lot
of determination.”
At
about midday, Zulia arrives with a big smile: “I’m
always in a good mood,” she exclaims.
And when she talks about her victory in Helsinki,
she says, “What I experienced was so wonderful,”
adding, “that day it rained a lot and the final
was delayed, but I was very calm. I knew that it
was not going to be a tactical race, not a race
for speed, and I felt ready.”
TWO YEARS OF NIGHTMARE
If
you try to compare her with Ana Fidelia Quirot,
world champion in 1995 and 1997, Zulia affirms,
“Ana was an extraordinary runner, but she’s
already written her story, and I’m just beginning
to write mine.”
Calatayud was 23 years old in 2002 when she beat
legendary Olympic champion María Mutola of
Mozambique, with a time of 1:56.09, foretelling a
promising future.
But in September of that year, after finishing
fourth during the World Championships, Zulia came
back to Havana to care for a leg injury. Fractures
in the fibulas of both legs kept her off the track
until April of 2004.
“I
ran a 400-meter trial meet and felt really good,
fulfilled,” she comments. Four months later,
during the Athens Olympics, she finished eighth in
the final. “It was a disappointment, because I
wanted a medal,” she notes. However, with time she
realized that “just being there was already a
victory.” And she began concentrating on the 2005
World Championships.
CALATAYUD HAD NO TALENT
The world champion remembers that she won her
first race, 60 meters, when she was 14. But her
mother Petrona Torres remembers that “my daughter
really went back and forth on it before she
entered the Sports School.”
She never competed in the Scholastic Games, from
which the island’s talents usually emerge.
With her first coach, Orlando Hernández, she began
training for long-distance races after Nelson
Gutiérrez guided her toward the 400 meters. That
was until 1997, when she entered the Higher School
of Sports and began
training with Faustino Hernández. “She was running
the 400 meters, but right away I thought about
training her for the 800,” explains Hernández, who
has continued to be her coach since then.
Hernández also trains Daimí Pernía, who was world
champion of the 400-meter hurdles in 1999, and
who, at age 29, is trying to make a comeback after
a year of injuries.
“I hope my example gives her motivation to do it,”
Zulia affirms.
The Havana native explains how she gets up very
early to train before the sun gets too hot, and
then does a second session at around 4 p.m.
The training atmosphere around the man that
everyone calls “Tino” is cheerful and serious: “I
don’t like general training, because it’s very
hard, and I don’t really care for weights, either,
but I do everything in a disciplined way, because
I know it will be the secret to success later,
during competition.”
AMONG THE GREATS OF THE 800 METERS
Today it’s Zulia Calatayud; previously, it was
Alberto Juantorena, double world champion of the
800 meters in 1995 and 1997 and Olympic
sub-champion in 1996; Norberto Téllez, World
sub-champion in 1997, and others.
“I would dare to say that only the Cuban school
trains good runners in the 400- and 800-meter
races,” Hernández comments. “Cubans were never
good long-distance runners; however, we have
always had good sprinters. We learned how to train
good specialists in the 800 meters by developing
aerobic resistance without losing speed,” he
explains.
Calatayud’s goals for the coming season are to win
at the Central American and Caribbean Games in
July in Colombia and then at the World
Championships in Athens in September. |
