Carolina Marín: "My biggest wish is to win gold at the Olympic Games Paris 2024"
Badminton star Carolina Marín is one of the sport's best examples of sacrifice, perseverance, and sportsmanship.
After years of suffering due to two serious knee injuries and their respective recoveries, the Spanish women's singles champion seems to have rediscovered herself. Bit by bit, she began to forget about the pain in her knees in training and in matches and the good results have followed.
She has won back-to-back titles on the BWF World Tour circuit, including the 2024 All England Open – the most important tournament in the sport after the Olympic Games and World Championships, and the oldest tournament in the world. Given her recent struggles, the wins signify a huge boost ahead of this year's Olympic Games.
"I don't know what percentage I'm [performing] at," says Marín in a recent interview with Olympics.com. "What I do know is I will be at 100 per cent for the Olympic Games, this I have no doubt about. Today my knee is perfect, and it's been a long time since I felt any discomfort."
In the interview, Marín explains what the process that took her from pain and anguish to hope and new successes was like. "Mainly what I have done has been to work a lot on the mental part, believe in myself and regain confidence in doing good training," she says.
And now, she's back, and aiming big. The Rio 2016 Olympic champion makes no bones about it: "My biggest wish is to win gold at the Olympic Games Paris 2024."
Mental health the key in Carolina Marín's recovery
The last five years of Carolina Marín's career were marked by constant ups and downs. Since the final of the 2019 Indonesia Masters, when she tore a cruciate ligament in her right knee, Marín has faced enormous challenges in recovering to her peak level.
Two years after the initial blow, when she was still in a process of physical and confidence recovery, she suffered an even more serious injury to her other knee, tearing not only the cruciate ligament but also the two menisci.
Understandably, the setbacks were mentally difficult to deal with. Her 2021 injury ruled her out of the rescheduled Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, where she would have been defending champion.
In 2022, Marín added a psychologist to her support team.
“The aspects that I worked on the most on a psychological level were my emotions, expelling emotions," she explains. "Having worked a lot with my psychologist, both off the court and on it, seeing what things can make me feel good about myself…
"And we're no longer only talking about badminton, but also about other things away from the court. Above all, believing in myself and regaining that confidence have been some of the most important keys [to my return]."
Marín adds: "Many times athletes ignore the aspect of mental health, but for me it is one of the fundamental pieces of our body because it is one more piece to work on.
"I have been working with psychologists since I was 15 years old. I work a lot on the issues of trust, fears, insecurities."
"I'm back": Carolina Marín looks forward to Paris
The 2024 season seems to have found the best Carolina Marín in a long time from a sporting point of view.
After illness forced her out of the World Tour's opening Asian round of events – "I caught a very bad flu and it didn't allow me to take a plane (…) I decided to stay in Madrid, recover as best as possible and prepare for the European season" – she has quickly found form.
She began her season at the European Team Championships where she won four of her five matches en route to silver for the Spanish women, and despite a first-round exit at the French Open, Marín landed her first big win of the season at the All England.
After winning the world's oldest badminton tournament for the second time in her career, she stated with just two words an ominous warning to her rivals: "I'm back".
That was backed up with a Super 300 tournament win at the Swiss Open the week after. But Marín misses the chance to go for three in a row this week, after withdrawing from her home tournament, the Madrid Spain Masters, saying on social media "I need to recover well" after weeks of hard work.
"It has been a long time since my knee has given me any problems and that is very important to me, especially when talking about my confidence, motivation, and desire," Marín says. "I find myself with great desire and ambition to face this month and a half (of European tournaments)."
The qualification ranking window for Paris 2024 ends in April, and Marín is on track to make her Olympic return in Paris (as National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective teams at the Olympic Games, Marín's participation at the Paris Games depends on the Spanish Olympic Committee selecting her to represent their delegation at Paris 2024).
"I'm not worried about qualification," she adds. "For me, from here to May it's about trying to be among the top four in the world rankings. I'm fifth at the moment and it's not something impossible."
A triple world champion, and six-time European champion, Marín has an outstanding debt with the Olympic Games. After missing out on Tokyo 2020, will she be able to return to the podium in Paris 2024?