I don’t know what they expect from me, but I know that they already know everything, everything, Fran Garrigósbronze in judo and our first medalist in ParisSo let me get on with my thing, which I hope is part of yours, although I am already 72 years old and we may not have the same tastes, not even in sports.

One of the greats has just died, one of the truly greats. Mariano Harohe ‘lion of Becerril’the first truly, seriously, professional Spanish athlete that Spain had. That is, he has just died, just the day the competitions started. Paris Olympics-2024the greatest, the father of all, the best, the only one, the pioneer, the forerunner, the one who won everything, the one who helped everyone, the one who went around the bullrings non-stop to take a salary home and help the family.

Infinite Champion

I have spoken to three monsters who knew him and thanks to them, the three monsters, Gerardo Prietoa great athletics journalist; Victorio Duketremendous communicator of COPE, one of the most original guys in this profession and Juanmari Iriondoa Basque-Basque, a unique guy, organizer of the Cross of Elgoibarone of the sanctuaries, the cathedral, where the Mariano Harowinner of all the middle-distance and cross-country titles and almost, almost, a medal in the 10,000 meters of the Munich Olympics-72. Everything that follows has been told to me by these three people. And I thank them.

They say that one day, a group of athletes were training in the Blume residence in MadridI’m talking to you, at the very least, about 1973. And that’s where Haro and his friend appeared. John Hidalgoa marathon runner. They went out to train in the Cottage And suddenly, a hare appeared and Haro left the group, his discipline, the rhythm and ran after the hare, until he caught it.

“Look,” Haro is said to have explained, as if justifying his snub. “At home in Becerril, we were seven siblings, dad was a bricklayer and, as you can understand, everything we brought home was little. We had to eat and I learned to run like the Ethiopians, like the Kenyans, chasing animals to hunt them and bring food home.”

Then, my wise men explain, everything was perfected. Well, not that either. Haro showed up one day in Madrid in a kind of competition organized by the Youth Front. “I went there to get out of Becerril, to walk around, to run a little and that’s all.” The fact is that, without any equipment, Haro, who was then 17 or 18 years old, went out to run against real athletes. He beat them to a pulp. “It was a 3.5 kilometer race and after 400 meters I was already 200 meters ahead of them. And I said to myself, well, go for it, let’s see how far I can go.”

Mariano Haro, in one of hundreds of victories. / EFE

He made it to the end. He won. The Civil Governor on duty gave him the trophy and he appeared on the cover of the newspaper. Palentino Diary. “I bought five copies to show to the whole town.” That was the beginning of everything. Until I arrived, three times in a row, in front of the Generalissimohe Leaderas Mariano Haro called him. “Always very correct with me. Period.”

I will tell you something else. Felipe VI does not remember, or maybe he does, who knows!, but Mariano Haro was his athletics teacher, at a clinic in Mallorca. “I taught him to run, along with 49 other athletes or young people. And, the truth is, he ran wonderfully. And I taught him to run because the Royal Family wanted the then prince to practice all sports. He was a good athlete. And a king, too.”

No running

Mariano Haro, I repeat, the father of all, absolutely all, Spanish athletics champions, rebelled against his mother because she would not let him run “in case he got sick”. But in his house, with a father who was a bricklayer and six other siblings, not only were many hands needed, but also a lot of food. And Mariano would run away from home, hiding from his mother, take his dog ‘Toni’ to the countryside and spend the day chasing rabbits and hares “because the partridges were unreachable”.

“My mother didn’t let me run away, in case I got sick. Anyway, I ran away from home, with my beloved dog ‘Toni’, a wonderful being, and we spent the day chasing rabbits and hares that we would later eat. We were seven siblings! And dad was a bricklayer.”

Mariano Haro

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The athletes of that time could not be professionals. Haro always ‘paid’ in kind. “But it was already good, very good. One day you won and they gave you a washing machine; another day you won and they gave you a refrigerator; I’ll tell you more, one day I ended up on the podium of the Elgoibar Cross (which I ended up winning many times, until I became the myth of Elgoibar) and I took home a FN Browning five-shot shotgunsomething never seen before, a real dream.” And Haro clarifies: “Well, I didn’t win it. Let me explain, there were several trophies and the athletes who preceded me rejected the shotgun and I, who was the best hunter in the world, was happy to take it.”

Haro, in order to help his family, and even feed many other families, signed up for everything. He even broke the record for 100 laps, 10 kilometres, around a bullring. He was paid a lot of thousands of pesetas “because there were bets, of course.”

Mariano Haro, in a photo from 2006. / JON BARANDICA

If any of you remember Mariano Haro, I celebrate it a lot. He was a wonderful person, a true gentleman, noble, farmer, runner, hunter (to survive, he and his entire family), an athlete as it should be. And he became so great, so popular, so mythical, that word of mouth even began to spread. “You run faster than Mariano Haro”.

He became so great, so human, so charismatic, so popular, so famous that Cola-Cao decided to include him in an advertisement in which, please note, the Belgian champion appeared. Eddy Merckxthe unique, unrepeatable swimmer, Mark Spitz and the F-1 champion Emerson FittipaldiShould I repeat the names? No, because Mariano Haro was there.

Haro was a blessing. “He never wanted to talk about how he could have lost, maybe, well, maybe, no, certainly, the chance to win an Olympic medal,” Gerardo Prieto, who knows everything, everything, about athletics, tells me. “We have always believed that the Finn Lasse Viren, suspected of doping, defeated him because of that, because he was doped.”

When people talked to him about these things, Haro, even at over 70 years old, always said the same thing. “I don’t care what other people do, I can’t stop them. My doping is a chickpea stew. However, I ask the new generations, everyone, to run as much as they can but not to take drugs. The first thing you have to be is loyal to yourself.”

Mariano Haro even starred in a great and very popular Cola-Cao advert, alongside – don’t miss the names! – the legendary Eddy Marckx, the incomparable Mark Spitz and the world-beating Emerson Fittipaldi.

Iriondo says that the last time he was with Haro was in the Cross of Elgoibar 2018on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary. “I will only tell you one thing, Emilio, and it will help you understand the dimension of Mariano: It took us an hour to cover the 100 metres, may I repeat? 100 metres!, from the square to the start of the race. Photos, autographs, selfies, hugs, greetings, cheers…we couldn’t take a step. People adored him. Sorry, they adore him.” And, yes, Iriondo also believes that it all began with Mariano Haro.

“I remember one day,” Haro told Duque, “that I was invited to an event in the Hotel Presidente, Barcelona. And there I went. But, of course, I had to follow my training schedule and, in the morning, I went out to the street to run. And, without realizing it, I stepped on a part of the grass around the hotel. And a security guard came up to me and said, ‘Hey, who do you think you are, Mariano Haro or what? ‘ “I’d better not say anything to him, right? I thought. Better, Mariano, better.

2024-07-27 23:21:37
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