The Catalan swimmer puts an end to his career and from now on he will study to be a barber
He will not cease to be linked to the synchro at the Les Franqueses club where he is already collaborating with the artistic teams
Pau Ribes was “scared” when Gemma Mengual He called him in 2014 to form a mixed synchronized swimming duo to participate in the 2015 World Cup held in Kazan.
He was the first boy in the specialty in Spain and accepted the challenge. Since that day when his legs trembled when he said ‘yes, I do’, many years have passed, vicissitudes, joys, successes, many, no, many hours of training and the costly role of opening a door that was closed and starting a path whose route was a complete mystery.
very well accompanied
Today, October 20, 2022, Pau Ribes has decided to put an end to his career in an emotional act at the CAR in Sant Cugat accompanied, of course, by the entire current artistic swimming team, by many of the CAR workers who have accompanied him throughout his career, led by the director of the institution, Ramon Terrassa, and the president of the Catalan Swimming Federation. Ramon Bosch, from the Secretary of Sports of the Generalitat de Catalunya Anna Caula, members of the Spanish Swimming Federation and his grandmother and his partner Marta, who did not want to miss Pau’s farewell ceremony.
After reading a letter of thanks to everyone who has crossed his path during his career, Pau assured that the time has come to put an end to his career, among other things “because I wasn’t going to be able to offer my best version”. After acknowledging that “saying goodbye is not easy at all”, made it clear that “it is time to start a new stage in the labor sector”.
Precisely, Pau explained a surprising change of course: “In November I start at a barbering academy.”.. following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather. And I am sure that “the values that sport has taught me will be very useful for this new stage of my life, although it will be very different from what I am used to”.
You can’t make a living from sport
The swimmer who knows that “unfortunately you can’t make a living from sport alone”, recognized that “I don’t change what I’ve experienced with synchro at all. It’s time to step aside and give way to the new generations that come up strength,” he said in his speech.
He recognized that having been a pioneer in male artistic swimming in the country is something “of which I am proud, but also of what has been achieved. I like challenges and I have enjoyed it very much. I would repeat this path again with all the people who have supported me throughout my career. Now is the time to normalize.”
Pau Ribes with the entire artistic swimming team
| VALENTÍ ENRICH
Pau recalled that artistic swimming appeared by chance in his life: “Who was going to tell me that what started as a therapy was going to become the most important thing in my life”, he said in reference to THD that he suffered as a child. “She brought Me out of darkness so that I could live in a world of water,” she sentenced.
The best of the record, opening a closed door
The swimmer, winner of two European silvers and four bronzes in the mixed duo, has as his best trophy having paved the way for men’s synchronized swimming. When he started, his was the only male license in Spain, today there are 12 in Catalonia and 49 in all of Spain. “A pride for me to have opened this door.”