The story of Franco Serrano: for 12 years he has been a “super athlete”, a soldier of sport and will go to the Olympics

The first contact of Franco Serrano with sport it was in the swimming pool of José C. Paz’s Club Estrada. He was three years old and his parents took him swimming as a game. At that moment he didn’t imagine that those first shots would lead him to become a “super athlete”. The fact is that some time later, when the game had already turned into a competition, he and his classmates were invited to try the game. modern pentathlon. And that sport, created more than a hundred years ago by Barone Pierre de Coubertin With the goal of finding “the complete athlete,” he hit it off immediately.

The native of Buenos Aires, then 11 years old, became passionate about the dynamics of a discipline that includes five others:I swimrunning and shooting combined in laser racing, fencing AND equitation– and was encouraged by the new challenge. And today, who has just turned 23, he is the best Argentine pentathlete and is just a few months away from playing his first Olympic Games.

Having qualified Paris 2024 finishing fifth in the Pan American Games Santiago 2023 It was the reward of many years of work and enormous dedication towards a sport as demanding as few others, which forces him into an itinerant routine from week to week.

“I spend all my time traveling everywhere, but I’m used to it,” he says Clarion. And he describes his busy schedule: “I do my work at the gym and my swimming work at the club.” Almaquatic. I go there twice a week CeNARD to do quality athletic training on the track. The rest of the days, being long-distance and long-distance training, I do them by going out for a run near home. For fencing, I go to French club and for horse riding, Merlo’s Argentine equestrian. I have my specific coach for each discipline. And shooting, since I have my laser gun and my target, I can do it anywhere I have 10 meters to position myself and shoot.”

-Training and competing in a high-performance sport is challenging and difficult. What’s it like to do it with five people at the same time?

-It’s difficult and sacrificial, especially in Argentina, where we don’t have the best facilities and the budget to be an elite athlete is a complicated issue. Maybe I like training in the countryside and I have always chosen to do so. I trained here and have never gone to train anywhere else, just to compete. And this works for me. I have scholarships from ENARDO he was born in Sports Secretary and I too am part of the Argentine army as a sports soldier. My family is my most important pillar, because thanks to them I can continue to dedicate myself to sport.

Planning the preparation for a tournament and organizing a week of training are particular challenges for Serrano, who adapts schedules and coordinates with each of his coaches. And he spends a good part of the day practicing one of the five sports that are the center of his life.

“I train two to three disciplines a day. I swim five times a week, run another six times, go to the gym four times a week, shooting, fencing two to three times and even horse riding. Although this can vary from time to time, depending on the time of year you are in and the load you have for each sport,” he comments.

“The technical director of the federation advises me and tells me how we should do things. And I am planning with my personal trainers, who know me very well,” he adds.

“Sometimes I train all day and separate the sessions, because I can’t do everything at the same time due to load problems. If I do one discipline after another, I don’t give up. And there are times when I train in a row. For example, I start at 2pm with the gym until 3.30pm. At 4pm I go swimming until 5.30 or 6pm. At 6.30pm I go to do some running work and finish at 8pm. That’s about six hours a day“, he says.

Serrano doesn’t stop for a minute. And not only because his sport leads him to respect an endless routine. In the few free moments he has left, the Buenos Aires native keeps moving.

“Rest is not staying in bed but doing other things. Staying at home with my family or going out with my friends. I am studying a degree in Administration at the University of Luján and I am organizing my lessons and schedules. It is important for me to have a life outside of sport and also continue my studies. And since I’m very passionate about horses, riding – not training on horses – and being with horses relaxes me a lot,” he says.

-How was it going from swimming to a sport that combines five very different sports?

-I started little by little with him sorry. I was 11 years old when the Argentine federation approached the club where I was swimming to promote this sport and invite us to try it. In those early years it was just fun. Always very curious. He trained every day, learned and improved. Being able to work with older kids who had experience in the disciplines helped me a lot. It was a long process, but it paid off.

In that first contact with the pentathlon in Palomar Military Collegewhere he arrived thanks to the invitation of Argentine Federation, competed in swimming and running. The following year he added filming. At 15 he had already started fencing. And only at 18 did he start riding horses. “It went like this: we went up in category and added disciplines”, he explains.

-Did some cost you more than others?

-Everyone had their moment of difficulty. It’s not that he was good at one and bad at the other. Each discipline had its own process, its own specific moment in which it was most difficult for me. But today I find a balance in all five.

-Do you have a favorite or one in which you stand out the most?

-Favorite, not really, because it’s the sum of everything. That’s one of the things I liked sorry. If I take away any discipline from him, he loses that grace. I usually participate in swimming and fencing tournaments and sign up for road or track races to improve myself. But I’ve always had a passion to do all five. Lately I’ve felt very good in the combined test, i.e. shooting and running. It’s one of the disciplines that took me the longest to get my hands on and this year in almost all the tournaments it was the one in which I stood out the most.

-You said that dedicating yourself to the pentathlon in Argentina is difficult and sacrificial. What drives you to keep doing it?

-I love the fact that it’s a sport where you never stop learning new things and there’s always something to perfect. And your whole career will be like this, because there will always be things to learn. And even though today I approach it with a lot of responsibility and seriousness, I still enjoy it in the same way as in those early years, when it was still a game. I think I enjoy it even more.

Objective: Paris 2024

Franco Serrano has had two very positive years. In 2022 he reached the semifinals (ranked 16th) in the World Cup in Alessandriain Egypt, and won silver in the men’s relay, along with Emanuele Zapata AND Vicente Limainside Returns Southern and Pan American Championships, Brazil, where he placed fifth in the individual. And in 2023 he achieved a seventh individual place in the Drzonkow World CupPoland, and that fifth place in Santiago 2023, which gave him the ticket to Paris 2024.

“My goal was to qualify for the Games. I trained very hard, it was very well planned to achieve this goal. I left the Pan American Games very happy: it was one of the best experiences of my career”, he recalls. Although he clarifies: “I still had a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth for not having won a medal, because what had been planned, especially on a mental level, he became Pan-American champion.”

The one in the French capital will not be Serrano’s first Olympics. His baptism was in the Youth of Buenos Aires 2018, where he won a silver for international mixed teams. Before starting his senior career, he was also a runner-up in the individual championship Pan American Junior Games Cali 2021. But she knows Paris will be a different experience.

“Buenos Aires 2018 made a big impression on me. It gave me the experience of knowing what it meant to compete at the Olympic Games and the whole process of classification and training, which is similar to the Adult Games. It was very important. I took Cali Il 2021 a little more seriously. I liked it a lot, because it was a very nice sporting and social experience. Santiago 2023 surprised me: I felt it was a more impressive event. Paris will be more than all the previous ones“he comments.

With the job secured, Serrano will now focus on “training and enjoying the process.” And in planning with the same objective as Santiago.

“We don’t think about a specific position yet, but we always aim to look for a medal: first place. In an Olympics, in sorry There are many athletes who can win and I consider myself one of them“, it is read.

And he adds: “I am aware that there is still a lot to grow and learn. This is a very old sport and I am only 23 years old. Most athletes to blow up of the larger ones. I had to qualify for the Pan American and Olympic Games at a young age, but that doesn’t mean anything. “I still have a lot to learn, to compete and to gain experience.”

The new pentathlon

THE Paris 2024 Olympic Games They will mark a turning point in the history of the pentathlon. It will be the last international event to include horse riding in the racing programme.

After a controversial incident in Tokyo 2020 – a German coach was seen hitting a horse and was expelled and his team disqualified – and the need for the sport to modernize to adapt to the plan of THAT ISTHE International Union has decided to replace the show jumping event with an obstacle course, which will debut at the end of 2024. The change has generated mixed feelings in Serrano.

“I would like him to continue riding horses, like the vast majority of athletes. However, I am happy that the International Union has found a discipline to transform into equestrian and that the pentathlon remains part of the Games. Some will like it more than others, but you have to accept it and continue,” says the man from Buenos Aires.

And he closes: “I am lucky enough to be able to participate in the Games and enjoy riding until the end. And then another challenge will come, because I will have a couple of months to adapt to the new discipline, which will not be easy, but not impossible either. .