Looking for a star: Lucia Salafranca Le Toulouzan

This week Felipe Gutiérrez interviews a new promise of triathlon  Lucia Salafranca Le Toulouzan
 

 

In the M-86 pool of the Community of Madrid I stayed with Lucia, since she was finishing her roller session before going home. We went to the Parque Roma which is located between the pool and the Royal Canoe and there we could have a chat.

It is a girl with a great personality has 15 years and is about to meet the 16 specifically 24 May, very beautiful and very funny and does not stop telling me "do not make me pictures that always go wrong", "I do not like photos "... that's how beautiful girls are! She is tremendously funny and very sure of what she does.

You have 246 friends on the facebook social network and we share 62, when you read the interview we will have more, almost certainly.

TN- What are you studying Lucia?

LS- I'm in 4º of ESO

TN- And in the future you want to study, what do you want to do?

LS- Well, I'm thinking about it now, but Sciences, but I do not know if Medicine or engineering, I do not know. Biology I like a lot and this year after the Physics that I love and I'm very good at, then I do not know ... I have doubts.

TN- What sports did you do before you started with the triathlon?

LS- I rode a horse, I rode for 5 years when I was little. He rode in Las Rozas in the School there.

I also went to swimming lessons, but I started with horses.

 

 

TN- And how did you start in the triathlon?

LS- A friend and I decided once to join the duathlon by couples from Las Rozas and we won. There I said to myself "I liked the duathlon". That summer we did a triathlon.

TN- But your sister already did triathlon or not?

LS- No, we started the whole family at the same time, four years ago.

TN- And you decided to do triathlon ... and with whom did you start?

LS- I never trained with a triathlon club, I trained on my own, I got into the swimming school, then I did the duathlon, then the triathlon. After doing the triathlon, my older sister wanted to get into the swimming school and after a year I also started in the same swimming club. And as I was also going to the Athletics School, that's how I started, but I never specifically trained triathlon until I went to the Federación Madrileña where at the beginning they were only concentrations and then I started here at the Madrid's technology center.

TN- Natalia started being in the concentrations before ...

LS- If it started before and when Natalia left, I entered. After taking the time request to enter the Center and here I am.

TN- Here in the Technification Center what work plan do you have?

LS- My coach is Alejandro Zaragoza, also "Uge" and sometimes Iñaki Arenal are also with us.

We swim every day from Monday to Friday from the 7,45 to finish on the 10 more or less. In the afternoon we have three days race and the other days we do gymnastics and roller. And the bike fundamentally on weekends.

 

 

TN- And what school do you plan on?

LS- We enter the school at the 10,30, eat about two in the afternoon and finish school on the 16,20. We share classes with other athletes of all sports, mainly water sports.

TN- After the medal you got in the Spanish Duathlon Championship, what are your goals for this 2015?

LS- I would like to be a medal again in the Spanish Triathlon Championship, it would be great, but the 2000 girls that have arrived swim a lot. In duathlon I could be there, but in triathlon it will cost me more.

TN- And in addition to this championship of Spain there are no more objectives?

LS- Well yes, there is Acuatlón and also get a place for the European Championship of Banyoles I would like very much. I think with 6 top in the Spain would go, I think.

TN- Would you like to go to a European?

LS- I competed in Quarteira y moló. It was good, the 28º was in junior and the experience was very good. They warned me that in the water they were going to "give a lot of sticks" and in the end I did not have a bad time, although with a little error in the transition I was left out of the first group, but happy.

TN- And the Olympic dream, does not it cross your mind?

LS- No, not yet. Look I want to study a career that will not be easy and combine that can be very complicated and although there are people who do I am not a superwoman, I have sometimes thought about it and told myself that it would be a lot, but I would almost move more to make an ironman, but already of greater.

 

 

TN- Do you admire a particular athlete?

LS-Ufff, I do not have anyone who says "I love it", but for example Cecilia Santamaría, I'm Cecilia's fan, I remember Quarteira who fell and picked us up again and when she arrives she tells us, how about girls? , I'm here, and it had just fallen. I think it's incredible that she is as positive as Sara Bonilla who fell in Melilla and then continued. Well, these people who at one time do not have it easy and do not leave and do not leave

TN- Do you do something else besides sport?

LS- Sleep, hahaha, sleep a lot and with my sister see many movies.

TN- What is the last movie you saw?

LS- Well ... "The Invincible" ... and also when I can stay with my friends from the other school since I do not see them much.

TN- In the team time trial this year you ran with your mother, I suppose it will be an interesting experience, how was it?

LS- It's been weird. There are things that cool a lot and in those you realize that you are closer to her. My mother and I are connected, for example one year she had the Paris marathon and I was running in Avilés, she did well and it worked out well for me too. It is as if he transmitted to me positive things. Then sometimes, it's my mother and then ...

TN- What do you think about being here in the center?

LS- Uhhh, many things you think. Well sometimes she does not like it, she prefers that she rest a little more, but she knows that I like her and if not, she would not be here and she was the one who got me here.

He told me: Lucia is going to be an unforgettable experience. I did it a year ago "sports etudes" and it's going to be very important for you, and that's how I got in. She is the one who wants me half to get out, since I get home "half melted" and the only thing I do is sleep and then only sees the bad of these days.

TN- And your father?

LS- My father says that as long as I like ...

 

 

TN- Do you have help from someone to continue in this sport?

LS- Esther Martín Flores helps me with her neoprene and Jose Angel leaves me her profile wheels. Nobody helps me and I've tried, but nothing ... I asked for some glasses and they said no ... and I just wanted some glasses, hahaha.

But it is clear that I can not forget the support of my club, the Triathlon Las Rozas, they make a quite important economic effort not only with the equipment but also with the inscriptions that if that help would be more difficult to compete continuously, for that reason I am delighted in defend their colors.

 

TN- Who would you like to thank something

LS- Undoubtedly my parents, my grandparents ... my family in general, since I am also substituting family meals for competitions and although that is not very cool, they are there and they support me.

TN- In France do you have a family?

S- Yes, I have a family and we go there every summer.

We continue talking about his things, his boyfriends or better than those who ask about his sister, she says that nobody "throws the yew" that only ask for the others.

Before saying goodbye, she asks me not to take those photos, that she always goes wrong. God, what a flirt! And how nice. She is a good athlete and surely every day that passes will take hold in the Spanish triathlon. Is it the star we are looking for?

Felipe Gutiérrez