The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are entering their second and final week of competition with the king of sports, athletics, already underway. It was in the 3,000-meter steeplechase event of this sporting discipline in which she competed 12 years ago, in London 2012, an athlete from Rivas, Victor Garcia.
Victor Garcia, who is now 39 years old, He grew up and lived for three decades in Rivas Vaciamadrida city he arrived in when he was 7 years old. “I remember playing on the Metro tracks, between Covibar and my house, and I played and put stones on them. We went through them by making a hole in the fence. Although things have changed a lot, I have lived in Rivas, I have seen it grow,” says Víctor in conversation with Diario de Rivas.
The first races were held in its streets, and it also saw its idols for the first time, when nationally renowned athletes came to Rivas to compete, such as Fermín Cacho, gold medalist in Barcelona 92, and Manolo Martínez, bronze medalist in Athens 2004.Rivas is a city that lives and values sport a lotnot only its institutions, but also its citizens, and I remember that athletics meeting in Rivas that I used to go to when I was little and it was always full,” says Víctor García, who is sure that if the city were to organize a major athletics championship now that the Cerro del Telégrafo athletics track is going to be repaired and approved, the event would be a success. “I am sure that with the passion that the people of Rivas have for sport, it would be full,” he says.
Bronze medal at a European Championship and Olympics in London
The athlete raised in Rivas, from where he recently moved for work reasons —“my parents and my sister still live in Rivas, I go there often, and I also keep my house because I don’t want to lose that connection,” he says—, was a medalist Bronze in his event, the 3,000m steeplechase, at the European Championships from Helsinki in 2012, a race he did not win due to a stumble near the finish line.
Víctor García, at the European Championships in Helsinki where he won a bronze medal in the 3,000m steeplechase (photo: Instagram @vgrunning)
In addition, Garcia also He competed in world championships in the discipline and in the best events both indoors and outdoors, and even in cross country. But no experience is comparable to his participation in the London 2012 Olympic Games.“The Olympic Village, the fact that all the sports are mixed together, and the impact they have, make the Games special. On top of that, they take place every four years, which gives it that touch of epicness and added difficulty that also makes it even more appreciated when you manage to go. I know many high-level athletes in different disciplines who have not been able to be Olympians due to life circumstances,” explains Víctor.
He himself experienced what it is like to miss the Olympic Games when he was already savouring a second Olympic experience. Three weeks before Rio 2016, with the ticket secured, he broke his soleus“I had the clothes at home and everything. I cried a lot, and it is an example of how easy it is for any elite athlete to miss the Games, which are held every four years,” says Víctor García.
As time goes by, Victor looks back on his experience in London in a positive light, but even today, 12 years later, he still has a bittersweet taste in his mouth. “Achieving it, going and experiencing it was amazing, one of the best experiences of my sporting life.but I arrived with severe tendonitis in my Achilles tendon and that affected me a lot,” García laments. “I couldn’t enjoy the process and the experience as I should have because I was more worried about the injury, which didn’t let me run well, without pain,” adds the athlete.
The ‘Olympic disappointment’ that Victor Garcia suffered with the injury that prevented him from competing in his second games was almost decisive in his decision to leave high-level competition. However, the nice memories, and the fact that he can boast for the rest of his life of being an Olympic athlete, dominate his memories.It is every athlete’s dream to reach the Olympic Games. And with the passage of time, one appreciates having achieved it even more: thinking about it and saying that I was there makes it sound proud and very nice,” the athlete from Rivas admits.
García is following the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with difficulty because he has to balance his work with his dedication to his four young children. “I am enjoying them like any other fan, remembering what you have loved so much and when there is success, I am very happy,” he says.
Víctor García, in his role as coach at Retiro Park (photo: Instagram @vgrunning)
Currently, Víctor García, a graduate in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, leads together with his wife the VG Running athletics club, a project through which they train popular athletes both in person, in the Retiro Park, and online. They also give athletics classes to children in the central Madrid park and collaborate with large companies.
“We are lucky to be able to boast that we bring more than 500 amateur athletes and we have groups with almost 100 boys and girls in the Retiro, and we also collaborate preparing training sessions with top-level companies,” concludes Víctor García, an athlete who brought the name of Rivas Vaciamadrid to the Olympic village in London 2012, just as Hugo González de Oliveira has done in Paris 2024, where he was unable to win a medal that Rivas Vaciamadrid would have felt as his own, after the Spanish swimmer, who now lives in the United States, began his adventures in the pool in the ranks of AD Rivas Natación.
