8,56

This is the story of a boy who had to travel two hours by bus and then walk three kilometres on foot every day just to get to the stadium to train. He jumped from Avilés to the world podium with a score that was impossible for a white man, a historic leap of 8.56 metres that earned him a World silver medal and a European record that he held for ten years. The only person able to overshadow him was Cuba’s Ivan Pedroso, a veritable legend. The Asturian was aiming high, really high, and more silver medals followed. Until he was beset by one injury after another. That damned Achilles tendon that took away his dream of Olympic gold and finally forced hm into retirement in 2009. Too young and perhaps too good ever to return. His final years were marked by several periods of depression, as well as his dream of becoming a helicopter pilot. Because he wanted to continue flying, that quality of his which explains why we are remembering him here today. Yago Lamela, the Icarus of Spanish sport, will be here to tell us about the next great leap that awaits him: his return to earth.

8.56 is a work of fiction inspired by Yago Lamela’s jump in the World Athletics Championships in Maebashi in 1999. Several elements of this jump resonate with ancient Greek tragedy: the hubris of the tragic hero and his irrepressible desire to go beyond his limits; the idea of destiny in the Achilles heel injury that Yago suffered, the notion of god in the supernatural body of Ivan Pedroso (an unbeatable rival) and the notion of polis, whereby Iago’s individual defeat is framed in a collective defeat, that of Madrid, which bids to host the Olympic Games three times and fails every time. Therefore, if tragedy was born to give a voice to those who did not have one, the goal of 8.56 is to give visibility to the problems of elite sportsmen and women when they have to leave the world of top-level competition and rebuild their lives.