Laura Fuertes, the first Spanish boxer in an Olympic Games: "They ask me why I fight with this girlish face"
Laura Fuertes remembers that at the age of 16 she wanted to start boxing and received so much support at home, so much understanding, so much encouragement that her father, Manuel, signed up with her.. “In my gym, the Asturbox, in Gijón, there was an offer that lasted three months and we both went. He left it quickly, but I stayed”, the first Spanish boxer classified for the Olympic Games recalls in conversation with EL MUNDO. Before her, since the 2024 Paris Games, there were 48 male boxers in competition and up to three medalists -Enrique Rodríguez, Faustino Reyes and Rafa Lozano twice-, but no women. You can't talk about equally, precisely.
Is boxing a macho sport? Depends how you look at it. As I was saying, I have been lucky to receive the support of my family and in my gym I have always been valued. I would say that no boxer thinks that women are inferior because they see what we train, what we suffer. But among the public there is everything. Sometimes you do have to put up with sexist comments: they tell me that boxing is not something feminine or they ask me why I fight with this girlish face.
From Monteana, a tiny district of Gijón, next to the ArcelorMittal blast furnaces, a working area, Fuertes had tried everything before boxing.. He practiced swimming until he burned out, like so many others, he dedicated a couple of seasons to basketball and tennis, he discovered karate and finally he got into the ring with all the intention of competing, of making a name for himself.. “I know there are a lot of people who box recreationally now, just for training, but I am very competitive.. There is nothing that gives you the adrenaline that the competition gives you. I watched videos on Youtube and Instagram, I followed him on television. One day my mother took me to an evening and it was already clear to me”, says Fuertes.
On his way there was a move, to the Madrid High Performance Center, in 2019, and a disappointment. Before the Tokyo 2020 Games, she was already prepared to be an Olympic, she already had the movements, she already had the experience, but the covid pandemic canceled a Pre-Olympic and she could not even apply for the place. So this time, at the first opportunity, at the European past in Krakow, bingo!
“If I won the bronze match, I had a ticket for Paris 2024 and in the second round I already knew I was winning.. When I finished I started crying, I came down from the ring crying and I didn't stop crying even when they interviewed me. It was very exciting,” she recounts. She needed that classification. Because perhaps it was her only chance to be an Olympic. Despite the 'boom' of recreational boxing, the sport is in crisis and will not make it to the Los Angeles 2028 Games. the stigma of violence persecutes him “You have to change that vision, but it will not happen from one day to the next. We fight with protections and with great security. Boxing is not a fight in the street”, defends Fuertes, who believes that his sport can still return to the times when it created stars and filled pavilions. Not surprisingly, the evenings organized by Ibai Llanos are a success year after year.
These evenings are either a problem or an opportunity for boxing. Both. They give us a lot of visibility and I'm sure there are people who are curious. Perhaps there are those who sign up for a gym after seeing an evening of Ibai. On the other hand, they give a little anger. The influencers who fight barely spend four months on it and, despite this, they fill stadiums and have millions of viewers on Twitch. It would be nice to intersperse celebrity fights with professional fights so that the public, especially young people, see what boxing really is.