Shaping minds, building champions: The man behind Carolina Marin
Newly crowned world champion Carolina Marin always struggled to find quality sparring when growing up in Spain. But it must have helped that coach Fernando Rivas was ambidextrous and could stand opposite the net and play both right handed and southpaw. That is among the many qualities that the multi-talented coach brings to the table, while guiding his 22-year-old ward to her second Worlds title.
Rivas plays three racquet sports proficiently — tennis, table tennis apart from shuttle. He also speaks eight different languages.
The brain behind Spain’s emergence as a country from where a badminton World champ could be discovered, also happens to be wickedly deft with another set of strings — he plays the guitar.
Marin has shocked the world with her consecutive Championships, piercing a screaming hole into what was hitherto an Asian dominance of women’s singles. Refreshingly, Rivas has proven that the controlled Chinese system isn’t the final word on how to create champs.
The iPad savvy coach, known for his deep acumen and technical analyses of opponents which have transformed Marin from a top-16 player only two seasons ago into someone who the Chinese fear, started video analyses for his ward at age 15. However, it is his insistence on not aping the Chinese and bringing into Marin’s development all that is commonplace in European sport, that is proving to be the game changer.
“He has a big role to play in making Carolina Marin a World Champ. He is tactically brilliant and will use all the science and technology available to him, to help his charge,” former international Arvind Bhat says. Bhat was invited to play in a few club games in Spain around 2005-6 and saw firsthand what Rivas was trying to put into place.
Marin’s the one in the spotlight, but juniors like Clara Azurmendi and Isabel Fernandez from Spain, and Beatriz Corrales could be bursting out of the wings sooner than you thought.
“He’s a master strategist and turned her from good to very good to World No. 1,” Bhat says, adding that his old friend has a vision that will take Spain far.
An average player from mid-to-late 90s who never quite managed to be even the best in his country, took to coaching around 10 years ago. But he would first travel around Europe for five years, learning sports science. He faced plenty of resistance having taken over from an old Chinese coach, but he would focus on youngsters, who were malleable.
Beating the Chinese at their game, something Korea and Japan, have been attempting for years, was bound to be tough. Rivas though, was equipped to shatter the existing world order and start with fresh ideas.
Rivas has come up at a time of a serious muddle in China which is struggling in its transition from the Li Yongbo era. Malaysia’s attempting a revival through Morten Frost, and India has two varied philosophies in the form of P Gopichand and Vimal Kumar (with heavy influence of Prakash Padukone.) While Asians rely on skill and artistry with a strong base of physical fitness, Europe led by Fernando Rivas and his highly democratic ways of functioning that might not exactly mimic military drills, could be changing the whole dynamic of how shuttle gets coached at the highest level.
Speaking to badmintoneurope.com after Marin won the Worlds last year, Rivas had said, “It was very difficult to get the confidence of seniors when I started because I had never been a better player than they were, I had always been beaten by them back when I competed in nationals. Second of all, the reigning approach in Spain was the Chinese style. Before I came there was a Chinese coach who left a big legacy in the veterans and they did not seem to be willing to embrace a more comprehensive and proactive approach.”
Rivas frowned upon the Chinese system, when he told the website, “Practice sessions lacked tactical contents and the Chinese style was omnipresent. Badminton was considered a physical sport. Just to be clear and my words are not taken in the wrong way, I have nothing against the Chinese approach, and it works pretty well in China. I just say that we cannot import it since the culture in general is different and there is no tradition of badminton in Spain.”
After Marin’s second title, Fernando Rivas has helped start a tradition, even as he changes the complexion of badminton coaching in the world.
