Speech by President of the Government at reception for Spanish women's water polo team

Moncloa Palace, Madrid

Good afternoon to everyone, to the President of the Spanish Swimming Federation, who has spoken with a great sense of balance and common sense, who has told us many truths; members of the management board; coach; technical staff; team members; dear friends,

I am very pleased to be able to celebrate this act. You know that being President of the Government is voluntary, but there are not many opportunities to attend acts like this. I am very pleased, I like sport and it makes me very proud when Spanish sports stars win; also when they compete and do battle, although sometimes the results are not what we want, because you can't always win in any walk of life, but for me, and I want to say this and believe me when I say this with all my heart, it gives me tremendous satisfaction to be here today with all of you.

I congratulate you in my own name and I believe that I can congratulate you on behalf of many people. You all know that what the President of the Government does is sometimes shared by many people; on other occasions by fewer people; but I believe that this, being here to congratulate you, is shared by the vast majority, if not by all the people of Spain.

I am very pleased and I congratulate you. Your successes have been many, the President of the Federation reminded us of this in his speech: World and European Champions, which I seem to remember has only happened to two other countries ever; a silver medal at the London Olympics and a gold medal in Río de Janeiro. That doesn't just happen to anyone and furthermore, it has a dual merit because, in Spain, surprisingly, and this I didn't know, and I am a big sports fan, there are only 600 federated female water polo players. Hence, this deserves great merit and, moreover, you are a very young team, and hence I hope that is not an obstacle to anyone as we now have our junior team playing in the World Youth Championships, and I believe you are going to go and support them in the quarter-final against Hungary. But you still have a great future ahead of you.

Hence, many congratulations and thank you very much for coming here. Mr President, it is an honour for both me and my government.

I also want to congratulate the Spanish Federation. As you know, often management is subject to criticism in any walk of life, but sometimes certain things are done well and they will have helped you to some extent, I'm sure, and also our Spanish swimming team which recently performed very well in Berlin winning many medals and setting many new records.

I said to the President before coming in today that I have had the opportunity - I have just spent a few days resting in Galicia - to follow all of these European Swimming Championships and I really felt very proud as a Spaniard, so just imagine how proud I will feel when we win these World Youth Championships that are being held here in Madrid.

The President described the essence of sport in his speech. Sometimes people believe that sport is someone who wins, who is on television, who receives a medal and they say, "that's great, isn't all this wonderful". But no, sport, like all serious things in life, involves hard work, effort, sacrifice, dedication, solidarity and team spirit. But behind sport there are values and good societies are those which have values. Societies are built on values.

What takes place in sport should be transmitted to each and every facet of life. We would be much better off, as would any country or company if this spirit of solidarity, of effort, of dedication and of never giving up always existed. That is very important and that is, deep down, what you convey to us. It is very important to win, without a doubt; it gives great satisfaction. Sport gives you the chance to see things differently, to deal with other people, but, above all, sport conveys values and good societies, healthy societies, societies that make progress are those that are built on the back of values.

The President of the Federation just said to us that we will try to adopt measures and take decisions - the State Secretary for Sport also said this to me - to promote the participation of women in all areas of sport. This undoubtedly needs to be done and it would undoubtedly be positive for sponsors and advertisers to realise that this is very positive for society and also very positive for their companies. I always say that it is better to sponsor whatever team in whatever sport than being the umpteenth advert in a string of umpteen adverts that no-one sees, because people end up getting angry when that happens on television.

At any event, that is what life is all about and some have gone away and learnt this. I am absolutely convinced that this will only increase in the future, not because I say so, but because it's simple common sense.

Anyway, to close, I repeat that I am grateful for your presence here today and I thank you for your hard work. I imagine this gave you great satisfaction. Whenever one reaps the rewards for hard work and effort, it gives great satisfaction, much more than when you win the lottery because you need to do virtually nothing to win it. And I really must say that at this time Spanish sportswomen have taken a giant quantitative leap forward.

It is said that swimming and athletics are the great Olympic sports. I believe that is true; if not, they wouldn't last for a whole week: the first week, swimming and water polo, and the second week, athletics. And that is where Spanish women are having great success and we feel incredibly proud of that.

Thank you very much for coming here, I wish you all the best of luck in the future and I'm not asking you for anything, because I could not ask for more.

Thank you.