Patricia Martín did not think of winning the Euskadi championship. His goal was to get on the podium, a little more. But I did, and with it I left an unexpected avalanche of attention that confidently overwhelmed her. “Hostia puta’, que lo he ganado,” he recalls with a mixture of disbelief and modesty. He says without any merit, but with the clarity of those who have their feet on the ground: “In reality, I have only won one championship. It’s my hobby.” Because for her, lifting stones – the rural Vasco deportee par excellence – is exactly that: an aficionado that is taken seriously, but which never intends to compete with the responsibility that occupies her professional life. At the hospital, you put on the gown and everything changes. She is a reconstructive plastic surgeon specializing in the hands and head of the Unidad de Grandes Quemados of the Cruces Hospital (Bizkaia).
Gallega from Ferrol, 40 years old, without social networks and boyfriend of media noise, reached the world harrijasotzaile —the word in Euskera which means stone lifter— because of her husband, like a dice between two laughs. This is a competition in strength disciplines and I discovered a school in Getxo online. He stopped and took her with him. “I started lifting stones right after the pandemic. I said to myself: ‘Come on, I’m going to like you’. And I started going. They called me. Three months later, they tricked me into going to the Vizcaya championship and since then, since 2021, I haven’t stopped”, reports this woman capable of lifting stones up to 75 kilos. To be Euskadi champion, last October in Mungia (Bizkaia), you had to weigh a total of 5,387.5 kilos, divided into 26 times with the 75 kilo cylinder, 24 with the 62.5 kilo cube and 31 with the 62.5 kilo ball.
What initially sparked surprise between them quickly turned into curiosity. “In Galicia, during pueblo festivals, we eat and gracias. Here you see rural deportees at every festival.” He also hears many comments mixing astonishment and admiration: “Hala, look at the girls”. She measures 1.80 on average and comes from volleyball, a sport that I often lost due to elimination: “Baloncesto volleyball. And I don’t give the profile of volleyball girls… but I don’t care.” He does not intend to make a living from lifting stones, nor to become famous, nor to fit into labels. “A rare animal? It gives me a little equal. I say what I like because I like it,” they say.
Remember your first competition: a small place, your coach absent, your husband and a friend accompanying you. The nerves. Another veteran weightlifter, Izeta, gave the best advice: “A lo tuyo.” Since then, every time he participates in a competition, he becomes angry. “I have a closed circle. I focus on the stone, on the coach, on the assistant and, by chance, on the referee. My husband cheers me up with a naked cry. And not with me,” he assures.
Say that now there are more women than ever practicing this traditional sport. At first, they were “four cats”. According to him, “the Vasco rural deporte is powerful here, but it remains in the minority”. And what’s more, you need a trained body: “You can’t start before 10 years or you shouldn’t,” he advises. The profession has also changed the landscape: federations, regulated championships, few games, but no women’s games. “Before, rural reporting was entirely driven by the apuestas, but when I started, I only saw them a few times. In fact, I never saw anyone. Now everything is more regulated, the Euskadi championship, the Vizcaya championship, the Mallabia championship, the Igueldo championship… To compete, you have to be federated. Before, there was no federation”, remember.
A vocation born ready
Outside of the square, reality is elsewhere. Much harder. He is responsible for the Unidad de Grandes Quemados of the Cruces Hospital, one of the most complex and demanding in Basque health. “If you are not able to lift a stone, you will not lift it. You will sleep. In the quirófano no. If something is complicated, a person is complicated”, he assures, taking a serious tone.
Recalls files that remain closed. How the child was electrocuted in San Sebastian, whose death occupied the holders last March. She had her team to fight for him. “We knew we had little chance. Lo pelaas, lo peloas… y llega un punto que dices: we can no longer fight,” he resigned. In these cases, you take them home, like any healthcare professional working in intensive care. “The stone falls where you leave it. But to the patient, to the family, you take them with you.”
I always wanted to be a doctor. The eso remembers. From a very young age, I wanted biology, but one of them recommended medicine “because you would live better”. During her career, she was determined to become a forensic pathologist, until, on the sixth day, she discovered plastic surgery. The key day was when I saw a jaw reconstructed using a piece of scapula. “Think: This is very cool. This is pure creativity.” And changed your destiny.
For her, sport is an essential escape valve. When the appendicitis operation lasted three months without training, he often climbed the walls. There were ways to secretly row a mouse on the ergometer. The stone balances it. The hospital defines it. One is strong; the other demands everything he has.
In this double life – chirofan and place, scalpel and granite – he found an extraordinary and magnificent balance. The one who maintains the same serenity as the one who lifts a fifty-pound stone: without noise, without epic, without impostures. Simply because you can. Yes because you want.
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