“My parents called the school and said I wouldn’t go” | Relief

Looking back at the footage from the memorable opening ceremony of Barcelona ’92, there is one photograph that immediately catches your eye when you see it. It is a child among 430 athletes of the Spanish national team in a blue jacket, light trousers and a tie in the colours of the national flag, chosen for all the representatives of Spain. Who was this child and why was he parading at the main entrance of the stadium alongside great stars such as Pep Guardiola, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, Fermín Cacho or Teresa Zabel, right behind the flag carried by the then Prince Felipe? Relevo found the protagonist, and his story is one of the most incredible in the Olympic history of Spain: his name is Carles Front was only 11 years old and yes, he competed in the Barcelona Games.

His presence was not evidence in any way. His responsible position was that of helmsman, or, what is the same thing, the person in charge who, together with the helmsman, directed the Spanish boat at Ocho, to keep a straight course and to use the strength of his eight companions.

At the opening ceremony, little Carles was a real star.”The athletes told me that I should be the flag bearer“, Relevo begins to tell his story, revealing the joke of that day on Montjuic: “In the end the king came and They had doubts that I would be able to hold the flag.But that didn’t stop him from attracting everyone’s attention: “People wanted to take pictures with me, I was amazed because all the football stars were there and so on.” There was even a special request from his idols, the men’s water polo team: “There was Estiarte, Pedro Garcia Aguado, Jesus Rollan… they asked me to take a picture with their camera, and I hope I can get it, I would be very happy because I never found it.“.

From that day on, in one of the photographs published in the newspapers the day after the inauguration, the Front was supported by its comrades, and the reason could not have been any other: “When we left, I was surrounded by “animals” and people did not see me.“Two colleagues lifted me up so people could see me, and everyone pointed at me.”

An album of indelible images in which Front is beautifully dressed in the uniform of the Spanish delegation, but a curious situation made him almost less suitable in the photographs: “When the clothes arrived at my home, they belonged to an ordinary man and me. I was three sizes too big“, check. “I had to return the clothes and they sent me special ones for the child.“.

As you can see, Carles remembers everything he has experienced, despite his young age, and there is a reason for this: “When we were about to go out to the stadium, my teammate Andreu Canals took me by the hand and said: “From now on, never forget this moment”. And it stayed with me.”

A child in the Olympic Village

After the ceremony, “immediately upon arrival at the Olympic Village, they came to tell me that they had a request for an interview. Me? Then I found out that I was the youngest participant in the Games and started appearing all over international television.“, he reminds us. Because yes, Front lived in the village, like another athlete, with his teammates and became a phenomenon in his sport: “I had to be the one asking the best rowers for photos, and they did! Asking me for them!” At 11, he became a sensation to such an extent that the International Rowing Federation congratulated him with a photo for Christmas.

Mom’s stew so we can compete

The story that led Carles to become an Olympic athlete began much earlier, when he was even younger. It was at the age of six, when his father, the famous coach Bienvenido Front, was setting up a boat for training and needed a helmsman: “I was the easy and quick option, your son.Each time he trained more and more and showed that, despite his youth, he could even compete. The problem? His weight: “The regulations said that the helmsman had to weigh at least 45 kilograms in the youth category and 50 kilograms in the absolute category. Of course, a child of six or seven years old… it is impossible for him to reach such a weight. But My father always told me that the day I gain weight, they will remember me.“.

After three years of training “like crazy”, proving his worth and waiting for him to reach his goal – “My mother kept giving me soups so that I would gain weight and gain weight”“, he tells us between laughter, “I reached 40 kilos, and we were allowed to compete with five kilos of ballast in the boat.” In his first experience, when he was only nine years old, he won the gold medal in the Catalan championship and went up from there. The following year, two national golds and two regional golds, which saw all members of his boat enter the junior team, with which he won world bronze in 1991… at the age of 10.“That was my big year,” he recalls.

International success has led to all his teammates to the absolute national team, which will prepare the classification for the Olympic Games in Barcelona. but for a while Carles was not among them. Only three months later, eight rowers agreed to ask the coach for the first Spanish team to be helmed, by popular demand, by the 11-year-old boy who had already led them to success. But a problem arose: “The team was training in Galicia, and I was in Girona. My parents decided to drop out of school and go to Galicia.. Something like this would be unthinkable now…”

To qualify for the home Games, a federation had to place in the top three at the Nations Cup, which was held in Glasgow a few months before the event. All said and done, under the leadership of the Front’s helmsman, Spain finished third out of eight with the coxswain and the place was secured.. But the decision was only communicated at the meeting to the “seniors”, who came out to celebrate before a bittersweet taste from the youngest, who seemed not to have been part of the decision, at least at first: “The president came to talk to me, I expected him to thank me for my services, and I was happy for them, they got it. He told me that if I won bronze at the Junior Championships along with everyone else, then my expectations were met and now that I had qualified for the Games, I had to go too.“.

“I called home and my parents didn’t believe it,” he recalls. “So much so that They had to call from the federation to know it was true.. It was unbelievable.” Front became the youngest athlete in the history of the Spanish Olympic Games. In sports, 14th place was the lowest of them.

A child never stops being a child

How did Carlos’ story end?When the Games were over, I had to go back to my parents, grandparents, friends…” he says, recalling that the Olympic path was not easy at that age: “Friends were always there, and I always said that I couldn’t, I had training. If you’re constantly training or traveling, I was no longer counted on and I was often alone, and that had a big impact on me.“.

The boy became a boy again, in his needs, as well as in the “prank” that sought only his happiness: “The tests were carried out for the 1993 team, and this is a secret that he has not told until now: I did everything I could to avoid being caught. They even stopped training and asked if I was okay. In the end they made a decision and told me they couldn’t take me because I had really bad days… and my smile was huge!“.

Little Carles returned to normal life and the necessary studies for his age, although the break cost him”repeat the course to catch up againHe didn’t give up rowing completely, but rowing eventually left him: “In 1995, I was grown up and already overweight. Since I was still a child, doctors did not allow me to go on a diet.… so that’s all I understood.”

The story of the Front, the story of the boy who made it to all the Olympic Games, is unprecedented in Spain. For example, in Paris, the youngest representative of the Spanish team will be the Basque figure skater Naya Laso, who at 15 will make her debut at the big competition in the park and will be able to talk about the experience gained over the years, as Carles does: “Some people tell me I didn’t last long, but I performed for two years and reached the top.“, he notes with a smile. Today, no one can say that she is 43 years old and that she was an Olympic champion no more and no less than 32 years ago.