Women’s sport the world is yours. Espacio Rastro Madrid serves as the venue for the gala in which MARCA presents its Football and Sports Awards after a year of great success… and with the Paris Games in mind.
An old garage next to the Ribera de Curtidores, rehabilitated to adapt it to the most demanding events, “but maintaining the industrial and traditional style of the neighborhood.” This is how Espacio Rastro Madrid appears on stage, headquarters of the gala in which the 2022-23 MARCA Women’s Sports Awards were presented yesterday in its dual football and multi-sports track… with world champions in both. Our particular plenary session at 15 in terms of the number of awards concerned, thus, invites us to reflect on the unbeatable performance of Spanish women in the elite. Less than a year away, it is worth remembering, the Paris Games.
Indeed, the event turned out to be circular. Because the first and last winners share a current condition, that of being the best in their specialty at a global level. María Pérez won two gold medals at the World Cups in Budapest, while Misa Rodríguez and Alba Redondo added to their respective status as Zamora and Pichichi in the domestic championship of having been part of the team that led us to glory in Sydney. And since the walker’s first medal coincided with those of the soccer players on the date, she herself joked (but very seriously) that she would have to win a second one to be on the cover. Said and done: to the previous 20 she added the 35 kilometers.
The award for the best Team coincided approximately with the halfway point of the event and went to the aforementioned national team, so the aforementioned Mass (Alba arrived at the last minute, affected by the weather) had to go on stage for the first time, accompanied in that case by his partner Eva Navarro. By then, the Citius, Altius, Fortius had also been awarded to Ona Carbonell, the Sports Promise award to Raquel Carrera (collected by Elisa Aguilar, the new president of the Basketball Federation), the Best Paralympic Athlete award to Susana Rodríguez, the Integration and Innovation in Women’s Sports to the Queens League (DjMaRiiO was there) and the Moment of the Year to Carlota Ciganda for that Solheim Cup that she was determined, and successfully, to maintain for Europe.
Here on the right you have the speech with which Juan Ignacio Gallardo, director of MARCA, introduced a gala presented by Ana Quiles and Vicente Ortega, sponsored by Caixabank, Iberdrola, and Nissan, and which was attended by numerous leaders of our sport, among them Fernando Molinero as representative of the CSD in his capacity as general director.
