Ander Mirambell’s legacy reaches the cinema: “This is not about winning or losing, it’s about living for a dream”
Like when he was sliding at 140 km/h on the skeleton circuits, Ander Mirambell will experience that same feeling of nervousness and responsibility. It will not be lying on a sleigh, but sitting in a seat at the Bages Center Cinemas in Manresa. This Friday, October 25, his film premieres: Skeleton’s Serious Kids, directed by Daniel Torres and Jaime Ballad. Before, a special preview for about 300 children. And on November 21, in Madrid. It has been two years to shape a audiovisual document that goes beyond sport.
The moment in which Javier Basas wonders why he was going down so slowly
The lights go out. The screen turns on. Ander launches without brakes through a carousel of memories and a range of dreams with the skeleton as the main actor. It begins with his retirement, gives a few glimpses of his active time and focuses, above all, on the project started to look for new pilots. “It is not a documentary about success or defeat or about my sports career, It is a film to show that every sport is built around a family.the one that is created between the athletes and the one that each one has behind him,” says Mirambell, who ‘pushes’ this film with the same tenacity as the sled.
It is a film to show that every sport is built around a family.
He project began with a group of more than 40 applicants. After the casting they were left with nine chosen ones. Some of those selection tests will be seen on the big screen. Mirambell led the blindfolded candidates to a bridge. They only hear the noise of the cars. Get out of the bag and jump into the void (bungee jumping). “Non-verbal expression is important to see who has a chance of being a pilot,” recalls Ander.
Whoever launched and repeated, then had to carry a stone in their hand and throw it to the right or left according to the order received. “When you are going 140 km/h on a circuit you must keep a cool mind to know if you have to go to the right, know how to listen to an instruction in a stressful situation,” says Mirambell. These methods of who with some cheese graters in his shoes faced his first descents. And he finished with more than 180 races, 92 in the World Cup, a double title in the Copa América, four appearances at the Olympic Games and flag bearer at the last event in Beijing.
Cartel Skeleton’s Serious Kids
“It can be a useful film for teenagers. You see a 14-year-old girl who struggles to go to the Games, a financial director who invests all his money to do skeleton… This is not about winning or losing, it is about living or fighting for a dream. If they can do skeleton, why can’t I do robotics, a sport or whatever you want in life,” says Mirambell.
In the script there is space for laughter (those athletes dressed as mechanics pretending on a road to change the wheels of cars that stop or the images that Mirambell recorded in 2005 on his camera in case one day he suffered a serious fall so that there would be evidence that he practiced skeleton) and the sadness (the difficult moment in which the Basas brothers face the death of their father and another brother in a traffic accident). “The experience they have had in skeleton has changed their lives not only as athletes but as people. It is about falling and getting up, overcoming frustration, the fear of going down to 100 km/h when a teammate has gotten hurt and ends up in the hospital…”, says Mirambell.
The chosen drivers go to Latvia to enter the skeleton circuit
The experience they have had in skeleton has changed their lives not only as athletes but as people.
A new season with a view to the 2026 Games
Of those nine boys and girls, five remain. The new season is about to start. Ana Torres-Quevedo, Adrián Rodríguez and Clara Aznar will compete in the World Cup. In the European Cup, Martín Souto will drop, who was already there last year but was almost blank due to an injury; Tirso Ocaña de la Vega, sprinter and archaeologist; and Pau Olive, who already participated in the 2022 preselection. “There they are envious of the Spanish project. It is a reality. They tell me: ‘But what you have messed up’. We are at the level of Italy that has some Games,” comments Ander .
Expectations are high. Evolution is also increasing. The push track installed in the Madrid CAR bears fruit. The pilots have worked hard in it this summer with Pedro Jiménez-Reyes, coach of sprinters like Bruno Hortelano.
Clara Aznar, on the CAR push track.
He The goal is to get two women and one man into the 2025 World Cup in a season of preparation for the Olympic year. “It will be a more compressed course because the next one will be long. We are going to accumulate volume and drops. The results are not a priority because we have to prepare well in the year of the Games,” says Ander.
Mirambell’s other goal is to screen this film in institutes and schools. “Before I receive an award, I prefer that it reaches many people so that they identify with the option of fighting for a dream. It is a tool to promote the values of sport through skeleton“says Mirambell. His dream continues. His legacy remains.
