Patricia García: "It's a very thoughtful decision, I've been thinking for several months that this moment was going to come"

MADRID, 23 May. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The player of the Spanish rugby team Patricia García announced her retirement from professional sport, a "very thoughtful decision" about which she acknowledged that she had been "thinking for quite a few months" and that she was clear that it would take place "at the end of this season", and she hopes having "left in a better place" the shirts he has worn so that this is his legacy.

"It's a very thoughtful decision, I've been knowing for several months that this moment was going to come at the end of this season. A few months ago I announced my last roar with 'the lionesses' for this European championship that we play at home," explained Patricia García in a event held at the headquarters of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) and in which the president of the COE, Alejandro Blanco, the deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, and the ambassador of New Zealand in Spain, Nygel Fyfe, were present.

Patricia García had decided to hang up her boots after the 2021 Rugby World Cup, but since she did not qualify, she decided to wait to be able to retire on the field, also renewing with Exeter Chiefs to "play a league as important as a professional XV rugby league".

The former player believes that rugby "has given her everything", but acknowledges that everything that elite sport implies was already "costing her more". "It was already weighing me down a bit, I already feel inside that it's time. I've always tried to give my best on the field, off it and to be at a high level of performance you have to have a lot of effort, a lot of work, a lot of sacrifices and This was already beginning to weigh on me," he explained.

The moment of her sports career with which she stays was "qualifying for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games" that 'the Lionesses' achieved "after six years of effort", although from her career she stays "with the people" she has known and with "playing rugby in many parts of the world and getting to know other cultures".

On the other hand, García identifies as one of the hardest moments "the transition from amateurism to professionalism" in Spanish women's rugby. "You realize that you lack resources, not always financial, but human or material. The moment when you are dedicating yourself to something professionally but you still don't have the context around you for it," says the player, who adds that "Luckily today the project is a little more established".

During the ceremony, Patricia García explained that she was "very honored to have been able to wear the shirt of the Spanish team for so many years and with so many experiences" and to have met "great people".

The player spoke of her beginnings in rugby, although she acknowledged that before she was "an athlete and a soccer fan". After starting out at university and in the Spanish league, she made the leap to France, where she played in the first division, and then moved on to New Zealand, "the Mecca of rugby". Later he went to Japan, in a country where his sport "is developing" and finally played for Exeter Chiefs, in "the only professional XV rugby league in the world" where, he says, he had "the opportunity to spend two years learn and grow."

"I learned in New Zealand, where they have a great rugby culture, a philosophy that, for them, is to leave the shirt in a better place than where it was found. With that philosophy from humility but with the work that goes into I only hope that the shirts that I have worn and that I have worn have left them in a better place, I hope that this has been my legacy," Garcia said.

Now she is focusing on her NGO, Rugby Libre, with which she has already been to Morocco, Chile or Brazil, among other places, and she was "super grateful for how the rugby family opens its doors to you." "I try to bring the values ​​of rugby to other areas of life and I think that has made me a better person," she said.

The president of the COE, Alejandro Blanco, praised the player, 384 times capped by the national team. "With that free spirit you have been the best in the world. I think that sometimes we are not aware of dimensioning the person in front of us," she assured.

The deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, also spoke about Patricia García, whom she said has helped "put Spanish women's rugby on the map". "It's what I would like the girls of Madrid to be", she affirmed, thanks to her values ​​such as "perseverance", "generosity" or "struggle".