They're special, same as you were ...

You've probably all been reading the tripe that Yannick Noah put out over the weekend and Le Monde published. *Sucking* and *lemons* and the colour of chartreuse come to mind. I've thought long and hard about discussing my views on here, but to be honest, the perfect riposte was published today from Emilio Sanchez Vicario. He says it better than I ever could, so lets turn this post over to him ...

They´re special, same as you were ...

Dear Yannick,

I write to you as a tennis player and friend, but I could also do it as the President of the Athletes’ Association of Spain, and the content of this letter would be very similar.

When I heard your inappropriate statements, I thought that probably your words were taken out of context, or that they were said in the heat of the moment. However, when I saw that the statements were from an article which was thought, written and sent from you to a newspaper for publishing, I felt a profound disappointment. You have hurt the Spaniards, the athletes and me; I think it is not fair to discredit the triumphs of Spanish athletes by treating them all as cheaters. You, who always defended sportsmanship! Is this a sportsman’s behavior? I don’t think we deserved it.

You and I competed together, we are friends and we have even discussed this topic at some dinner. The truth is that I am still stunned, you give to understand that being physically strong or having a privileged body is because of taking magic potions. Then, those who competed with you, what should we think? We had before us a much stronger and athletic player, faster, more explosive, and we thought: “he is the Great Yannick, pure talent, naturally strong, how lucky he is”. We never thought that you had the potion of Asterix.

What we do have in Spain, and you were a great paradigm of this, is that we have channeled the energy to create the best means to compete, and this goes beyond tactics and technique. These four factors are the head (cabeza), the condition (condición), the heart (corazón) and the balls (cojones). If you channel these four factors, it appears this energy that makes the difference. This Spanish four Cs, the four principles of the great Severiano Ballesteros, is what today leads most of Spanish athletes. This is our potion, dear Yannick.

I take this opportunity to tell you that Spain began sports competition in a continuous manner 30 years ago, the same stage where we improved as a country and got to the level of Europe. This social improvement gave us the confidence to believe more in ourselves and to be able to believe in our four Cs, mainly due to the hunger for successes not achieved before. The success in sports of Spain has been a process in which each generation has overcome the previous one, but not an overnight success as you declare. For example, talking about our sport, tennis, where Spain leads the circuit, my generation was followed by the one of Bruguera, who won two Roland Garros. Then it came the generation of Corretja and Costa, surpassing the success of the previous one, and then the one of Moya, who achieved the number one position of the world for a few weeks, followed by Ferrero, who managed to be a solid number one. Next it came the generation of Nadal and all the other great players we have in the top 100, which have been inspired by the previous generations and have surpassed them. The same has happened with other sports, like soccer or basketball, in which we have been gradually improving. You, who understand about soccer, can see that our players win because of their game, but not because of physical power. The same happens with our basketball players, who do not have the athletic body of your son, but they ended up beating him in the final. An exceptional generation, as Spain has in basketball, is not made overnight, indeed this is the fourth generation that succeeds. Slowly and progressively we have most of our national team playing at the NBA.

We all know that our Rafa, the only one with an outstanding physical condition, very similar than yours, wins because he channels better than anyone else the four Cs. The great champions do not win because of magic potions, they win because they are special and are able to create this unique energy, just as you did.

Traducción de Alex Costa alexandra@sanchez-casal.com

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