Mariano García sets the pace towards a wild 800 final
Josué Canales is so young that not even his first memories are close to the Bolt era. “So, the first thing that comes to mind is Van Niekerk’s world record,” says the revelation of the year in the Spanish middle distance. Time, as you know, is relative. For the life of the young Honduran who at the age of three, the son of an almost adolescent couple “my parents were 17 when they had me”, settled in Girona in search of an opportunity in the same, his childhood sometimes passed very slowly. From a very humble family, he was a bricklayer, she was a caregiver for the elderly or a house cleaner, and she knew no luxuries.
But, suddenly, the temporal dynamo has gone crazy in just a week. Last Sunday, in Guadalajara, He announced himself to the sports world by running the 800 meters in 1:44.49 to be the sixth fastest Spaniard – although he will not appear in the rankings – of all time, the third in 2024, the Olympic year, whose tickets will be discussed this Sunday. And on Friday, on the eve of his immersion in the Spanish Championships held in La Nucía, he received the transfer from World Athletics that allowed him to compete for the country he considers himself from. The announcement caught him sleeping. “I woke up and saw I don’t know how many messages on my phone and I told my roommate: ‘hey, it’s out.’ I didn’t think this day would ever come.”
I have spent my entire life up and down and with the feeling of not having a home, a settlement, let’s say. Although now everything is more stable.
“I don’t remember anything about Honduras before coming here,” he says. “I was very small. Let’s say my first childhood memory was It’s already from school, when we went to P3 or P4. Then it is true that when we were 10 years old or so we returned for a year (he has two little brothers). “It coincided with my parents’ separation and they sent us there until everything was cleared up.”
An austere life
Canales, who speaks with an undeniable Catalan accent, grew up in hardship. His parents settled at the beginning at an uncle’s house and then, when they were able to rent a house, there were never any excesses. “In fact, I started in athletics because I didn’t have to pay. My parents didn’t have money for extracurricular activities and after running in a cross-country school, they came looking for me and since I was good at it, I signed up.”
He started at the Gironí Club with María Simó, “who, let’s say, mentored my beginnings,” and he soon shone. She spent two or three days training a week to do it seriously with Josep Badosa, GEiEG coach. “He made good marks in 600 meters, breaking the Spanish sub-16 record, but since he was not Spanish he does not count.”
Since he did not obtain nationality – his has not been anything express or for good results, but for conventional citizenship – He started running through Honduras. “I didn’t spend much time around the country in those competitions either. I just concentrated and the next day we flew wherever.”
He ran the U18 World Cup, where he reached the semifinals in the 400m, and the Youth Games in Buenos Aires 2018. in a competition that was a sum of 400 and 800. “I don’t even remember how I ended up. I think I did in the top 15.” He became a citizen when he came of age, although he still participated in Costa Rica in the Central American Games, which was the competition that delayed everything.
His surroundings took on a professional appearance. He went on to train with Andreu Novakosky, accessed the CAR tracks, his manager is Jesús Oliván, the boy from Aranjuez who grew up in the eighties with the pressure of those who reminded him that he jumped more than Carl Lewis at his age; He has Miquel Ángel Cos as a physiotherapist, who worked at Guardiola’s Barça; He belongs to the same club as Saúl Ordoñez, who, being a brat, went to see him run on the Serrahima tracks – “and I also remember seeing the Spanish record on TV”, and, now, he is prepared by Carles Castillejo. “This is a very different thing. And I thank the Catalan Federation for betting on me and supporting me with the scholarship while I was injured and not being a nobody in athletics,” he acknowledges.
Canales, behind, in the 2023 National indoorThat period he refers to was almost all of last year. After having been fifth in the Spanish Indoor Championship, In a dizzying race won by Ordoñez, “where I was there and made a mark (1:46.12),” he suffered pubalgia with bone edema that lasted until December. “I almost had to re-educate myself. I went back to being a 1.48 athlete, then 1.46 and now one who has the Olympic minimum.”
To do this he will surely have to win Sunday’s race, Well, only the champion has a guaranteed place and then there are other criteria. “I still haven’t touched the ground since Sunday, I want to dream big because I am very aware of what I can. But whatever happens I will be very happy.”
The boy who grew up not knowing how long an athletics track was, who only remembers going running with his father one day when he was 12 or 13 years old and “simply for him to lose weight” and who was stunned when he first saw, without knowing what awaited him, Rudisha’s world record run at the London Olympics he now looks forward with enormous excitement. He has put aside the end of his international trade studies for next year so he can focus on his progression.
But, also look back, and see the efforts of his family. “I am 22 years old and when I think that they at that age They had a five-year-old boy and he is worthy of admiration. They have fought hard to earn an honest living. I have spent my entire life up and down and with the feeling of not having a home, a settlement, let’s say. Although now everything is more stable.”
