JJPP Milano Cortina 2026: Higinio Rivero, summer-winter double

The Spanish athlete Higinio Rivero will make history in the Milano Cortina Paralympic Games 2026which start this Friday. He will not be the first Spaniard in history to do a summer-winter double nor, if he does, the first to win a medal. But he will be the first to compete in three disciplines between both seasons.

Before him, Magda I love won medals in athletics (gold in length in Atlanta 96) and skiing (bronze in Albertville 92, silver in Lillehammer 94 and 4 golds in Nagano 98) and Juan Carlos Molina He reached the podium in cycling (bronze in Barcelona 92) and skiing (gold in Lillehammer 94 and gold in Nagano 98) in three editions of the Games.

Rivero, a 43-year-old native of Bilbao, suffered a climbing accident at age 31 and worked hard to continue competing, which was what he liked most. Aragonese by adoption, as he likes to say, managed to compete in Tokyo 2020 and the recent ones Paris 2024 in canoeing, achieving two diplomas.

now in Milan Cortina He arrives signed up for two disciplines, making him the first Spaniard to participate in three, and also being the first in our country to compete in the Para sport category. biathlon.

In 2022 Rivero signed up for a CDIA (Aran Winter Sports Center) campus where there was cross-country skiing, but not thinking about changing: “It all started simply looking for preparation for canoeing in the summer in the winter, but I liked it so much that I got hooked. We have seen that we can be competitive and we have come this far,” he told TVE at a farewell event for the Spanish Paralympic team.

For the Biscayan, the main difficulty is shooting, but he has compensated for it during the preseason: “I have been lucky enough to be able to set up a gym in the garage of my mother’s house, with an ergometer, and between exercises I get down on the ground, I do the positioning as if it were a shot to keep my breathing and the shooting protocol stable. I have also tried the Candanchú biathlon circuitbut this year I have not been lucky enough to be able to train because they did not want to prepare the snow and we had to go to Italy and Slovenia,” he told Efe.

Regarding the expectations he sets for himself, Rivero is not ambitious, but admits that he feels “stronger than ever. I feel very good, it is a new experience and I am very motivated.” Although at the same time he assures that there is still work to do: “The dream position would be a top 10 in a race, although it would also be good between tenth and fifteenth. In cross-country skiing I would go for a top 20 although if I am among the top twenty-five it would also be great.” “I come to give my best version and we will see where I position myself,” he concludes.