The hour of the siesta by Felipe Gutiérrez "A book"

The truth is that I thought I had already talked about everything and that is practically the case. But it is also true that he had never commented on a book.

This afternoon and after the nap time, if I'm honest I have not had it in a traditional way since at ten o'clock in the morning "the fever" could be with me after the morning training session and now at five o'clock in the afternoon I return to the real world, more or less recovered.

Yes, today I want to dedicate my column to a book that for different reasons I loved everything I've been able to read so far and more than anything to be in contact with the author Jorge Garcia Garcia.

Many times athletes forget that at some point someone was the first person to start this other "fever" of the sport.

Already without entering into other issues the book entitled "The origin of women's sport in Spain", is a work that no one should stop reading and be able to analyze those women who one day ago a while ago were launched in a complicated Spain and power practice a physical activity

Jorge, the author tells me: "The book focuses on recovering all the data of this process, recovering all competitions, all clubs and all Spanish athletes since the late nineteenth century, the date of the incorporation of sport into society, until the end of the Civil War. For this process, just over two years ago, an integral emptying of the main newspaper archives and photo libraries of the country has been carried out.

Likewise, references and quotations to the few, although valuable, works and articles related to this topic have been integrated into the work. All this has made it possible to make important biographies of many of those women and to recover from oblivion one of the greatest achievements made by women in our country, the invasion of public space, until then only reserved for the male gender".

More than 800 pages, more than a thousand unpublished photographs of the time and a magnificent prologue of an eminence of sport like Paloma del Río, another pioneer since Spanish television has already sent it to cover 13 Olympic Games, the popular voice in sports such as gymnastics and skating, makes a masterful entry to the subject and fortunately the Superior Council of Sports endorses this work through its program Woman and Sports. Paloma is the only journalist awarded with the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit of the Superior Council of Sports. Almost nothing!

At the end of the year or at the beginning, it will be on the street and it will be the ideal gift that you can give yourself or Santa Claus or the Three Kings, but in one of the gift packages you can sneak it and both you and the rest of the family can read it and have it as a headline book regarding the beginnings of sport in Spain for a sector that almost "did not leave them or run."

I would like to talk about the work of the author Jorge Garcia Garcia. More than three years collecting data, many hours of newspaper library, travel, bibliographic review reading, Jorge at his university in the Faculty of Geography and History of the University of Salamanca and in the subject of History of gender relations, he was stung by gusanillo and launched to investigate. In his book he tells us perfectly and it is worth reading it and rereading it again. Without a doubt, Jorge has "created" a bedside book on this fascinating subject. Thanks Jorge, your work is unbeatable.

As a final conclusion Jorge tells us: "The recovery of the history of women in sports is essential to better understand our complete social history. " What truth and how I like that there are people like Jorge who can enter fully in this field and make us all participate."

On the sentimental side that I also have some time to read the chapter dedicated to the grandmother of my children Aurora Villa, pioneer in athletics, swimming, Physical Education and always admire in that aspect and the professional side of ophthalmologist , People like her have promoted the sports and professional values ​​that in this book Jorge Garcia Garcia highlights in his work.

Felipe Gutiérrez