Madrid, Apr 18 (EFE).- Jon Rahm, represented by his mother, and Alexia Putellas received the National Sports Awards corresponding to the year 2021 on Tuesday at the El Pardo Palace (Madrid) and which distinguish them as the best Spanish athletes of that season.
The golfer, Rey Felipe Award, rose in 2021 to the first place in the world ranking of professional players, a position he also currently occupies, and won the US Open.
Rahm’s trophy, which is in the United States, was collected by his mother, Ángela Rodríguez.
Alexia Putellas, Reina Letizia Award winner, won the Champions League, the Spanish league and the Copa de la Reina with FC Barcelona in 2021, as well as being awarded the Ballon d’Or and the FIFA ‘The Best’ title, awards that he would repeat the following year.
The king and queen presided over the award ceremony, which was attended by the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta, the presidents of the Higher Sports Council, José Manuel Franco, the Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blanco, and the Spanish federations along with numerous athletes.
The Olympic Games among the distinctions
The rest of the distinctions took into account the results obtained by the Spanish delegation at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, held in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Thus, the taekwondo athlete Adriana Cerezo, Olympic silver medalist in Tokyo and gold in the European championship in the -49 kg category, and the climber Alberto Ginés, Olympic champion in Tokyo, received the Princess Leonor and Rey Juan Carlos awards, respectively. like the best young men. When they got on the Olympic podium they were 17 and 18 years old. On behalf of Ginés, who is competing this week, his sister Miriam picked him up.
Other Olympic champions, Fátima Gálvez and Alberto Fernández, received the Barón de Güell Cup as the best team of 2021. Together they won the gold medal in the mixed team Olympic pit event.
The Venezuelan athlete Yulimar Rojas, gold in Tokyo and world record in triple jump, received the Ibero-American Community Trophy.
Several institutions and organizations were awarded for their work promoting sport.
The Navarro Sports Institute received the Reina Sofía Award for its projects in favor of fair play and the eradication of any type of violence in sport and its collaboration on equality, LGTBI and migration with different institutions.
Sport as a therapeutic tool
The use of sport as a first-order therapeutic tool in the treatment of people with spinal cord injury made the National Hospital for Paraplegics of Toledo worthy of the Infanta Sofía Award, dedicated to promoting sport for people with disabilities.
The Real Grupo de Cultura Covadonga, founded in 1938, collected the Stadium Cup for its promotion of grassroots sports, while the Superior Sports Council Award went to the Murcian municipality of Águilas, for its promotion of sport and physical activity.
The Joaquín Blume Trophy distinguished the IES Hermenegildo Lanz (Granada), the first center of educational and sports excellence in Andalusia, with a project aimed at high-performance athletes.
Podoactiva, a center created in Huesca in 1994 that is currently a world reference in podiatry and biomechanics for its work focused on athletes’ performance and injury prevention, received the National Award for Arts and Sciences Applied to Sport.
Conrado Durántez, considered the ‘sage’ of Olympism, founder of the Spanish Olympic Academy in 1968 and of the Paniberica Association of Academies, received the Francisco Fernández Ochoa Award for a lifetime dedicated to the practice, organization, direction, promotion and development of sport.