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There are people with an extraordinary ability to turn obstacles into challenges and overcome them. Sara Cabrera Casino is one of them (video).

How else can we explain that this 23-year-old Valencian girl, who lives in a community where this sport is not federated and has no ice rinks for training, has won the U23 World Cup in ice speed skating (1000m)? How else could she manage to combine her sporting career with her studies in Mechanical Engineering at the UPV?

"The truth is that it's a bit complicated because we don't have any facilities here, so we have to go abroad, and that's a bit of a budget thing... We have to invest a lot of money in ourselves," admits Sara, who won gold in the final in Japan after starting the season in Canada, where she spent a month preparing and then travelled to Italy, where the U-23 World Championships began and ended. There, Sara won 3 silver medals (500m, 1500m and mass start) in addition to the 1000m gold.

Two consecutive bronze medals at the World University Championships in 2023 and 2024.

Despite her youth, she has an extraordinary track record (last year, she was the Spanish champion in the 1000m). Sara has just repeated the bronze medal she won last year in the mixed relay at the FISU World University Games in Lake Placid (New York, USA). This success has left Sara with a bittersweet taste.

"I am very happy, but we would have liked to have won the gold medal," she says. "We were prepared, but we had a series that was a bit slow, and as it was a time trial, we did everything we could to get bronze. I would have liked the track to be a bit faster because I'm looking for a minimum to enter the senior World Cups, and it didn't happen. I'm very close, but I haven't got it yet".

The Olympic dream

Sara, who started skating on wheels - in fact, she still combines the ice and roller seasons - was part of the Spanish national speed skating team between 2016 and 2021, winning bronze in the 300m time trial at the 2018 Junior European Championships, silver in the 200m time trial and gold in the 500m relay, a speciality in which she was crowned European champion the following year.

However, "in recent years," says Sara, "I have concentrated more on ice because it is an Olympic sport, which opens more doors. In fact, the Olympic dream has been a decisive factor in her decision: "Like every athlete, I would like to go, and that's why I have to reach the minimum standard to enter the senior World Cups. Once I have achieved that, I will enter the rankings, and from there, I will try to get enough to go to the Olympics".

Finishing 2nd year of Mechanical Engineering and "very grateful to the help of my classmates".

While fighting to become an Olympian, Sara is also trying to train academically. "It's a bit complicated because when your head is in the game, it's hard to concentrate on what you have to do, but I'm trying to get my degree as best I can. I also have the help of the UPV, which adapts a lot to my dates so that I can take my exams, and my classmates, who help me with my notes and other things. The truth is that I am very grateful to them".

"At first, it was unusual for them," Sara recalls with a smile, "because when I started university, I would go to class one day, and then I wouldn't go for two weeks. But once you tell them what you do, they are interested in everything and greatly help me. I'm really grateful to them.

Nil Llop and Erin Jackson reference a Valencian woman... who is a member of the Catalan Federation out of necessity.

"If I had to choose references," says Sara, "I would choose Nil Llop, who combines both disciplines and Erin Jackson, who also does it very well. She started skating relatively recently, qualified for the Olympic Games in record time and won gold in the 500m in Beijing in 2022".

This is how the UPV student sees herself, as she has only been skating for five years. "I started older, but thanks to my results on wheels, they gave me the opportunity to join the Spanish national team. They bet on me, and it's working," she says proudly, aware of the obvious difficulties she faces.

"You actually reach a level where you are competing with people who train every day, and you can't do it, and also at the federation level, I am affiliated to the Catalan federation because there is no Valencian federation, which makes it quite complicated for me when it comes to asking for subsidies or anything else because they ask me for a Valencian federation licence... and there isn't one".

In any case, obstacles have never stopped the Valencian queen of ice, an elite athlete who continues to break barriers with success and who, while studying, dreams of becoming one of the first female engineers in history... to win an Olympic gold medal.

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