Natalia Malaga: Willpower & Enthusiasm!
Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State of The us, as soon as explained: “There are no strategies to success. Good results is the result of perfection, difficult function, understanding from failure, loyalty to these for whom you operate and persistence”. Surely Mr. Powell could effectively have been talking about Natalia Málaga, the final survivor of the golden era of Peruvian feminine volleyball gamers who won numerous trophies in excess of the earlier fifty percent-century, placing Latin America’s female activity on the Olympic map, together with Nicaraguan-born Costa Rican Claudia Poll (swimming), Gabriela “Gaby” Sabatini from Argentina (tennis), and the women’s basketball facet of Brazil, of program.
A-Born Athlete!
Practically absolutely everyone in Peru has heard her name in latest many years. Inside volleyball positions , she is 1 of the two most well-liked and highly regarded men and women, alongside Gastón Acurio, who is typically referred to as a single of the gurus in World Gastronomic.
She was born Natalia Maria Málaga Dibos on January 26,1964 into a sporting family members in Lima (Peru), the 3rd biggest region on the South American mainland. In this context, she confirmed assure as an athlete at a extremely younger age, profitable significantly encouragement from her lecturers, buddies, and team-mates. Like many other ladies in her hometown, she dreamed of one day enjoying for Peru’s women’s volleyball squad.
She was small, but overcame this with her voracious urge for food for wins. In excess of individuals years, she participated in a great number of volleyball fulfills, a activity that more than any other embodies Peru’s multi-racial culture. Quickly afterward, Málaga’s excellent expertise and self-control gained the focus of numerous coaches, amid them Norma Velarde and Luisa Fuentes (equally who fired the countrywide fascination in volleyball in the seventies when they claimed numerous best honors).
Not long later on, she was promoted to Peru’s under-seventeen national volleyball staff. During this time period of time, she started to get her 1st international meets. As early 1980 as, for illustration, she lifted equally the Continental Cup for Women Under-17 and the Under-19 South American Event. That identical yr, she received favorable notices and was commonly mentioned as a possible Olympic sportwoman to go to what is now Russia to contend in the Online games of the twenty third Olympiad. However she handed unnoticed in the previous Soviet Union when the junior squad competed against senior groups from Iron Curtain nations this kind of as the Democratic German Republic (GDR) and the USSR. At Moscow, for illustration, the host nation beat Peru 3-1. But that was a large encounter in a time when the Latin American republic had not money to make pre-Olympic excursions -not like Cuba, United states, Brazil, and Japan– on Far East and Japanese Europe. Almost all of Peru’s expenditures have been compensated by the Kremlin at the 1980 Moscow Games.
Many thanks to this experience, nearly two years later, an eighteen-calendar year-old rookie, Málaga produced a sensation at the Junior South American (SA) Championship when Peru claimed gold at the expense of Brazil. For the duration of individuals a long time, Peru developed what has been referred to as the “miracle of Latin America”. As no other country in the 3rd Globe, there had been a lot of globe-course volleyball players regardless of a lot of road blocks: Denisse Fajardo, Gina Torrealba, Cecilia del Risco, Cenaida Uribe, and Aurora Heredia, between other people international stars.
Nonetheless in time, by mid-1984 precisely, the nation’s head coach Man Bok Park experienced his eyes on Málaga to substitute Carmen Pimentel. Thereafter, she became a celebrity in her property region, along with her other crew-mates, as the countrywide aspect arrived shut to profitable the Olympic glory in late 1988.
Even with getting 1 of the shortest users of the Peruvian volleyball squad, she was one particular of the best gamers in the background of game in an era when her country had been devastated by one of Latin America’s worst conflicts (in the course of individuals troubled instances, the Peruvian squad was an exception in Planet sporting activities). Her Olympic leadership was (and as coach presently) extremely comparable to the previous goalkeeper José Luis Chilavert of Paraguay, who was usually referred to as 1 of the world’s best footballers in the earlier 50 %-century. Soon after a 23-12 months sporting occupation, Málaga officially retired from the activity in 2003. Adhering to Peru’s declining volleyball image, she turned to coach. She wants to put the Latin American republic back into the international race.