Luis Barrionuevo, the physical leg of the 2000 Sydney Lionesses

The 25 years of the lions arrived with many memories of that event that changed the history of sportbut in the midst of those memories and experiences of the past, Almost in unison a name came out that helped make modifications in the structure of the process to take the selected to a place that had never arrived: Luis Bruno Barrionuevo.

Foughtwas the main collaborator of the physical branch for Sergio Cachito Vigil in its beginnings, It was a key piece to make the girls believe thatthat there was a way to arrive at the top of the mountain, although it would not be simple.

“February 24, 1997I don’t forget morethat day they present us to a group of women as the new technical directors and physical trainers of that team, which came from a non -good result in Atlanta 1996. They, with great expectation of having new drivers and we understood that something different had to be donemodify the mentality that they start the day training very early, at 8 in the morning and not at 19 as they were accustomed. ”

Luis BrunoOlympic athlete in high jump, I knew that discipline is something that cannot be negotiated and tried to instill its learning of individual sport and take it to the group: “I like to talk about athletic preparation rather than physical preparationwhich is a difference, Because the body is that, a body, but also has emotions And you have to know how to join the training, with everything you learned in your career because if not later the effect is not going to be seen on the court. “

In addition to physical trainer, Barrionuevo had the right word at the right timeknew how to transmit the sap that emanated his heart with anecdotes or experiences, that remain as a hard drive in the 2000 liones.

“I had to learn to use wordslanguage ontology is called, What to say, how to say and when to say it. I think the girls realized that and valued it. The training they proposed, but the emotions were channeled by convincing them, in some way, that this was the only way to reach the limits they would have proposed “.

And he continued, “they were convinced little by little, and I was released, and I realized that emotions must be managed to handle a good training, because they were not only rigorous and very hard physically, but when something had to be said and we knew it was important, said and talked. Seeing with your hands, change Jean’s number, because the legs had been muscled in another way, Those things that the body changed them, but began to play the powers in the Utrecht World Cup equallythey arrived at a semifinal playing well, whole, physically almost the same as the powers of the world, That was the price they had paid to start playing internationally”Said Luis Bruno.

THE POWER OF THE WORD

There was a crucial moment, in which Barrionuevo had to demonstrate all his speaker faculties to motivate that group that received the hardest blow of the entire process in Sydney and in the middle of the contest.

“When the regulation l happenedIt is a storyis called THE HOUSE OF DREAMS PERFORMED. Basically it is a group of women who have to get to a house where the dream they had, crystallizes and get it, but they have to go through various levels or weaknesses of weaknesses And the story ended up telling them, ‘And are we going to resign ourselves now?’ I reminded them of all the things they had done in four years and refile, while talking, I see that Soledad García was crying, his tears fell and suddenly there was a silence … the captain got up and said, ‘Tomorrow we are going to wear that shirt they gave us with the lioness, because if we really are liones, we cannot resign ourselves now. There are three games to play and As leonas we have to win‘. Karina (Masotta) He got up spontaneously and said that, and the next day the tour began. We beat the Netherlands, we shook China, we beat New Zealand and play the Olympic final. “

Yes Barrionuevo had ease to invent stories that made them vibrate, I was aware that you didn’t have to abuse your strength as a preacher: “Do not do it very frequently because if the word does not lose value. It seemed to me when there was a crisis or a special situationI had to be present not as a physical trainer, but as that coach. The physical trainer ended on the athletics track, on the hockey court, and the coach that reaffirmed with words everything we had done on the track or on the court was appeared. “

Beyond those achieved in the process, Fought Do not forget the tenacity that that set of players had as a coaching staff and the conjunction that was in all its lines. “We found the group that any coach would have wanted to findan open group that was very beaten, but very hungry that some of his potential had to go out And they found an excellent technical director like Cachito, A passionatea great team leader who always had the right word, like Claudia Medici, We didn’t know where I was, but I was in all, Gaby Minadeo And, at the beginning, Lalo Junquet To help Sergio to be better and Luis Ciancia which was the Headcoach of the project. “

Differentiate achievements

But if we emphasize what one earns in sport, that squad of The lions managed to strengthen the beams built many years beforewithout so much visibility or reflectors, to assemble a skyscraper with a legacy to which each player, since he was born, wants to belong: “I always differentiate the results of the achievements, What we truly win is that Today we go for the sixth, seventh generation of lionesses that some were not born in 2000 and yet they have the concepts of those lions, That is a achievement. A selected one becomes important for a sport country, when he leaves ways to face life, to live sport, If they are as a person, of nobility, of effort and that produced the liones of that generation, the first and continues to be transmitted. That is an achievement that is as or more important than a good result. “

A quarter of the century of what happened in Sydney 2000 is fulfilled, But what is professed by Las Leonas will endure forever in the retinas and Luis Bruno was encouraged to tell how he would like that group in another 25 years to be remembered: “With which it was a team that had very clear ideas, who trained dreams and trained very hard to achieve themthat it was the first team that was convinced that the limits do not put anyone if you do not put themselves, if they talk about that in 25 years … And I hope that from here to 2050 some generation of lionesses have already put the gold in games, once, as a consequence of this first group that began to see the sport in the way that the lionesses did in 2000”Barrionuevo said.