BarcelonaThe idea of this book is to bring girls and boys closer to their references, their heroines. Bringing together the new benchmarks of women’s sport, the Ssports superheroes… with powers like yours which give the name of the Ara Llibres project promoted by the Government of the Generalitat. In theory, when we talk about these powers it is to refer to the 10 Catalan sportswomen who star in the chapters, but it could also be used for the lives of the 10 authors, all of them sports journalists. They don’t have superpowers, but they’ve encountered so many obstacles during their career that you might think they do.
The project has two sides. One is in the form of a beautiful book, with illustrations by the Rosa Sardina collective, a group of illustrators and designers who have opted for collage to bring the 10 stories to life. And a second part in the form of a podcast co-produced by Abacus and the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation available on the SX3 website. An idea turned into a project, a book with its own voice, which has filled the Camp Nou Auditorium 1899 with adults and children. A lot of children who are excited to be able to see a pam Aitana Bonmatí, who participated in the event: “I felt reflected in my story. It is my childhood. My parents always gave me support. And in fact, my parents pushed the initiative to change the order of the surnames. I have my mother’s surname first, a fact that was not possible before and now it is. They have always believed in equality , and so did I. I received support. But other colleagues did encounter barriers, people who told them that sport had to be male,” she explained. The girls and boys listened to him. Fathers and mothers, too. It’s everyone’s job, to have the superpower of equality.
The audience was made up of a bunch of kids who won a competition from the SX3 club to be there. Among them, the Sant Gabriel women’s team, which competes in a children’s league and is third in the standings. One of these players was able to speak with one of her references, Aitana Bonmatí, in a moment she will never forget. “When I was little, there were no female references. When I was a child, I suffered difficult times fighting with children. I think that if the little ones grow up with male and female references, society will be fairer. I received insults,” recalled the Barça player, who has admitted that she would like to have a role as a coach in men’s football, in the future, to continue breaking down barriers. “If soccer is a masculinized sport, motoring is even more so. I imagined the many times Laia Sanz must have been told she couldn’t do something,” said journalist Marta Carreras, author of the story about the Catalan trial pilot, who was also present at the event. “When I was little, I was tired of competing and being told to other kids that they couldn’t lose to a girl. I was six years old and it happened. When I was little, I didn’t even realize what was going on. But when I went being older, there were comments with bad intentions, those that generated impotence. People who said that the judges valued me better because I was a girl, that they looked down on me,” said the driver from Corbera de Llobregat, who has completed the Dakar 13 times. “Now when I see the trial races with girls, I feel more proud than with the titles, because I feel that I helped pave the way,” he added. Ivete, a 13-year-old pilot from the Maria Giró de Piera trial school, was able to ask Laia Sanz about her origins. “When I started, the women’s trial didn’t even exist. That’s why I always had to compete against the boys,” explained the champion.
10 athletes, 10 stories
The 10 protagonists of the stories are Alexia Putellas, Aitana Bonmatí, Ona Carbonell, Queralt Castellet, Laia Sanz, Anni Espar, Kaba Gassama, Laia Palau, Núria Picas and Paula Badosa. And the 10 authors of the stories, Laia Tudel Prades, Marta Ramon Gorina, Maria Fernández Vidal, Sònia Gelmà, Gemma Herrero, Marta Carreras, Anaïs Martí Herrero, Elena de Diego, Helena Condis and the ARA journalist Laia Bonals, in charge of ‘tell the story dedicated to the water polo player Anni Espar. To be able to tell her story, Bonals has worked closely with the CN Mataró player these days in Australia. To understand everything she has overcome to become European champion and be able to transform it into a story. “I wanted to know how it had started, what led her to water polo and how important it became to know a different culture, like the United States or Australia. Getting people to discover her life and her feeling reflected in it. Everything is thinking, in the stories, for Anni to be the point of reference for girls who want to start playing sports and can make their dreams come true. It has been very nice to work with an athlete who has opened up so much,” says Bonals .
“Between us we have talked many times that we still have the feeling that we have to do twice as much work to equal our male colleagues. The impostor syndrome. It happens to us when you are young and when you have to start. Over time everything changes , but when you enter the world of sports and find yourself surrounded by men, it always costs,” said Marta Carreras about female journalists, with a speech that could be useful for sportswomen, too. “You still have to put up with comments that belittle you, from people who are surprised if you show that you understand,” said the host of the event, Laia Tudel.
The event was attended by the Councilor of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà Pons; the vice-president of the CCMA, Àngels Ponsa, and the vice-president of Barça, Elena Fort, who has admitted that “in sports management we are still very behind”. “The other day, at the Spanish Super Cup played in Merida, I was talking to the president of the Real Sociedad and a person came up, I won’t say who, who greeted the president of the Basques with a hug and me ignore. He didn’t think at any time that I could be vice-president”, said the only woman who is part of the club’s board right now. There is still a long way to go. Bringing the little ones closer to new references, progress is made. Both the referees who compete and those women who have signed the stories.