Ines Lopez
Happy birthday to Spain’s discus thrower Inés López, the European U23 champion, and the second-best Spanish woman in history in her event.
On 30 May at the NCAA West Regional in Fayetteville, Inés threw **60.57m**. Only one Spanish woman has ever thrown further, and only three have ever passed sixty metres at all. Two weeks later she took **third at the NCAA Championships** with 59.96m and came away a First-Team All-American, having already won the **Big 12 title** in May at 58.50m — the first female Big 12 champion in the history of Arizona State’s programme.
Last July she did something no Spanish woman had ever done. At the European U23 Championships in Bergen, Inés threw **58.20m with her first attempt of the competition** and won the gold medal, a Spanish U23 record, becoming the **first Spanish woman ever to win a continental throws title**. Her own framing beforehand was blunt: her clear objective was to win it, because she saw it as an almost unique opportunity to fulfil her dream of hearing Spain’s anthem played, and for that only first place counts. Now or never, she called it.
And a month ago, on 24 July in Málaga, she won her **third consecutive Spanish national title** with 59.28m — the best mark by a Spanish champion in that event since 2015. She also puts the shot 16.51m indoors, which is a serious mark in its own right and the reason she is a genuine two-implement thrower rather than a discus specialist who occasionally borrows a ball.
The discus is the throw that gets the least camera time & asks the most of an athlete’s patience. It is a rotation, a balance problem and a release angle, resolved inside about a second and a half, and it punishes anyone who gets any one of the three slightly wrong. Inés is from Madrid, competes for Valencia Club Atletismo at home, and is a graduate student at Arizona State, coached by Turner Washington in the US and by Frank Casañas in Spain.
¡Feliz cumpleaños, Inés! Muchas felicidades, mucha salud y que ese disco siga volando cada vez más lejos. 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇪🇸