Fernando Perez Soto | León (EFE).- From athletics to music: Manuel Martínez, former captain of the Spanish athletics team and Olympic bronze medalist in Athens 2004 in shot put, continues his “cultural voracity” that he now extends to the world of music with his new project «Tribe Touca».
Before abandoning the practice of athletics in 2011, after a career full of successes, national and international hitherto unrepeated by Spanish pitchers, “Supermán” Martínez (León, 1974), showed his concerns with the world of art.
Sculpture, painting, poetry or interpretation have been his predilections up to now within a varied offer that allowed him to combine sport and art, his two “passions”.
The athlete himself sums it up, in an interview with EFE, with a simple reflection: “for me it is life, what makes me want to get up and get excited every day, regardless of whether the different projects are more or less successful and, at After all, it’s all illusions.”
Music is what touches my heart the most
Everything is perfectly defined in the following axiom: «music is what most reaches my heart, writing is what heals me, the audiovisual is what gives me money, and sports and athletics, which also give me the security, I try to give back what he gave me in life.
What the strong athlete has never hesitated is to seek the required training, as he did for his film projects, such as “Stigmas” or playing Goliath in the adventures of “Captain Thunder”, television series or leading adventure television projects.
From athletics to music, but also to literature
Nothing seems to resist the former athlete, who also does not forget what was his passion for years, athletics and throwing, and for this reason he spends many hours training pitchers, some of them champions in various disciplines, but also athletes adapted.
He has also created a foundation to promote his sport and help different clubs and athletes, without forgetting, in parallel, his artistic vein.
Two books that are in the layout phase and will soon see the light of day have been born from her, as the last “children”, one for children “The Giant Boy” which, like a story, recounts his stage of childhood experiences for a child with certain complexes due to his “voluminousness”.
And a book of forty poetic postcards, made in both cases by himself, both the illustrations and the literary creations, which collect his emotions from years of evolution, compiled during the pandemic and which represent, he says, “watermarks of language and emotions in rhythm musical”.
Both projects will see the light of day throughout 2023 that opens with another pirouette, the musical project “Tribou Touca”, in which it has brought together performers in a group open to participation for musical animation aimed at all audiences.
«Tribe Touca»
«It is a collective project that leads and is focused on parties, mainly in towns, but in any locality, with a mixture of electronic pop-rock, passed through the sieve of traditional music to play with fusion, with the different nuance to other orchestras that will be their own songs and not versions”, as he maintains.
His intention, after publishing the first song, “Que viva la gente”, which “seeks to be a hymn for the party”, is to continue in subsequent weeks disseminating the rest of his creations on the different platforms.
The name of this project combines the concept of “tribe”, hence its symbology in the colored marks on their faces and its link with “Lionés”, one of the oldest languages in Spain, with a term that wants to describe the interpretation musical, although its meaning in the dialect is different.
The inexhaustible flow of initiatives of all kinds does not seem to scare a man capable of throwing the steel ball beyond 21 meters – a national record still in force – because, as he himself says, “years ago, after having a bad time” he began to do what his heart dictated, always respecting all opinions, but without fear of anything.
In addition, he adds, the sport made him “learn by fire that if something is worked and polished, with tenacity, perseverance and repetition, you can achieve something, at least, worthy.” EFE