The Rivas swimmer Carlota Rodríguez, aged 14, broke the absolute record for the 50m butterfly at the Junior European Championships in Munich with a time of 26.35 seconds. She will train at the CAR in Sant Cugat and dreams of the Brisbane 2032 Games.
The swimmer Carlota Rodríguez, who has lived in Rivas-Vaciamadrid for four years, has become the fastest Spaniard of all time in 50m butterfly. She achieved this in the semifinals of the Junior European Championships in Munich, held in July, with a time of 26.35 seconds, which lowered the absolute record of Lidón Muñoz, in place since 2019, by 22 hundredths. Rodríguez competed against rivals three years older.
The next day, she missed out on gold by two tenths to French swimmer Andreanne Bourseul and took home the continental silver. A week later, at the Spanish Children's Championship held in Gran Canaria, she won five individual golds: 100m and 200m backstroke, 50m and 100m butterfly, and 200m individual medley.
The season also brought her a record at the Mediterranean Cup (COMEN), held in June in Novi Sad (Serbia). There, she won gold in 100m freestyle, 100m backstroke, 200m backstroke, 100m butterfly, 4x100m medley, and 4x100m freestyle, as well as silver in 200m freestyle and bronze in 4x100m mixed. With nine medals, she is the first Spanish swimmer to surpass the eight won by Olympic champion Carmen Weiler in 1998.
Born in Arganda del Rey, where she trained at the Malvar club, Rodríguez moved to Rivas with her family four years ago. Last season, she competed with Canoe and has been studying and training at the Madrid Sports Training and Specialisation Centre (CETD) for three years. In September, she will move to Sant Cugat del Vallès to train at the High-Performance Centre (CAR), where she will be in her fourth year of secondary education.
I swim all styles except breaststroke. And I need to improve in all of them. I started with backstroke. Freestyle and butterfly I have incorporated in the last two seasons. Butterfly is the hardest, but I manage it quite well.
Her routine last season included training from Monday to Saturday. She would wake up at 5:30 and drive to Madrid: from 7:00 to 8:00, gym or mobility; from 8:00 to 10:00, swimming; and from 10:30 to 15:30 or 16:20, classes at the Ortega y Gasset Institute, which is attended by athletes from the CETD. On days with double sessions, she returned to the water from 16:30 to 18:30.
Among her role models, she cites Carmen Weiler, Mireia Belmonte, and Canadian Summer McIntosh. Her dream is to compete in the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games, like another Rivas athlete, Olympic and world champion Hugo González.
Carlota is a humble, shy, and very normal girl. Her success is in her head. They put five gold medals around her neck, she gets off the podium and puts them in her backpack as if it’s normal. She likes discretion.
The swimmer's father describes her character this way and confirms that the family is “very happy” in Rivas, a municipality that Carlota appreciates for its green spaces, modernity, and variety of opportunities. Her first contact with water was at nine months old, during mother-and-baby swimming classes with her mother.
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