If you are a regular reader of 'The Other Chronicle', allow me to introduce you to a Yulen Pereira that you don't know. He is a fencer, yes, but not only that: he was the best in the world in all the lower categories, the medal at the Tokyo 2020 Games was an option when he broke his knee and he can get on the podium at the Paris 2024 Games.
If you are a regular reader of 'DXT', allow me to introduce you to a Yulen Pereira that you don't know. It appears in the gossip, yes, but not only that: a year ago he participated in the reality show Survivientes on Telecinco, there he began a relationship with Anabel Pantoja, Isabel Pantoja's niece, and a few weeks ago the couple's breakup filled front pages .
Two different lives, two almost opposite lives, which Pereira now handles as best he can.. He admits it: it's complicated. But it also has its advantages.
WORLD
“The last year has made me stronger mentally. I come from a minority sport, I have discovered a world very different from mine. There are good things, suddenly people congratulate me on the street for my medals, but there are also many bad things”, admits Pereira in conversation with EL MUNDO after training at the High Performance Center in Madrid. There he finds shelter, his exercises, the colleagues who only know him as an athlete, the absence of flashes. But outside…
The price of the fame
“I have known what the haters really are, what it is to be persecuted by the paparazzi…. and it has become very big. There was a moment when I hit rock bottom, I didn't know how to manage it, I had to ask for help. I didn't want to open my phone or leave the house. What it said: now I feel stronger mentally. I transform that hatred into motivation and I have learned to live watched all day. I don't wish it on anyone, but I think it has made me better on the track,” says Pereira, 27, who this season has won medals at the Heidenheim World Cup and the Cali Grand Prix, and has returned to the top 25 in the world ranking. If he is not injured, he should shine in the next events, European and World Cup, and qualify for the Paris Games, a feasible goal. After appearing on television, immersing himself in show business, enjoying its honey and suffering its inconveniences, he has returned to the almost anonymous and poorly paid life of an Olympian.
Do you regret getting into 'Survivors'? I don't regret it. Do you know what happens? Breaking my kneecap and staying out of the Tokyo Games changed my plans a lot. I was among the best in the world [fourth in the ranking], I was prepared to fight for a medal, I was extremely focused and the injury left me with nothing. Everything I had done up to that point was useless.. I had no scholarship, no sponsors and I had to look for life. At first I changed clubs, I went to Paris to compete…. but the offer of 'Survivors' arrived. It was a new experience, I was in a non-Olympic year and I thought: why not? I do not regret.
“There are other athletes who have become known thanks to whiter programs, such as Masterchef or El Desafío, but I was in a controversial relationship, very exposed, with the tabloids on top of it.. Now I don't close doors, I can go back to television, to campaign, but I prioritize fencing. It has never crossed my mind to quit fencing. Perhaps I could earn more with other things, but I am a fencer above all else and that will never change”, proclaims Pereira in a love song for his sport that began in the cradle. Because he also played basketball, yes, in fact, he is a staunch fan of the Miami Heat in the NBA, but he was called to be a fencer and a fencer is. Although for a long time I hated him.
hated fencing
His father Manuel, also his coach, was world champion in 1989 and sixth in the 1992 Barcelona Games and since Yulen was little, raca, raca, raca, raca, raca, raca. “As a child everything was fencing, fencing, fencing, I have sucked a lot of fencing at home. To tell you the truth, until I was 14 or 15 I didn't like anything. I was going to train and I was crying. I used to tell my father: 'I don't want to fencing, I don't want to go, I don't want to go'. But he always won. And I did like that. I kept fencing because I liked to win. From the age of nine I was champion of Spain in all categories, number one in the world in all categories… My father saw the talent and wanted the best for me. Now I thank you for insisting so much,” says the fencer with a Cuban mother who, as a teenager, was left out of the Rio 2016 Games due to a hit in the Pre-Olympic Games, who suffered pain before the Tokyo 2020 Games and who, after ' Survivors', lived another catharsis.
All his life he had been a muscular guy, a closet, and seen and not seen – by some two million viewers – he lost almost 20 kilos. Suddenly, a shiver. He discovered that his sporting resurrection would be tougher than he thought. “People thought I was crazy. How is he going to get back to the high level? But you see me. It's been a hell of a diet, double sessions, physio sessions. When I came back from reality I gained weight very quickly, an effect brutal rebound, and then it was very difficult for me to convert it into muscle. I even suffered two muscle injuries”, concludes Pereira, with a life in 'La Otra Crónica' and another life in 'DXT'.