In seat 1307 of the Congress of Deputies sits a water polo player from the Honor Division. Wearing the number 9 hat of the Canoe club, a PSOE deputy and secretary of LGTBI policies of the party jumps into the pool. Víctor Gutiérrez (Madrid, 33 years old) has been living a double life since December. From the suit to the swimsuit and from the swimsuit to the suit. Politics and sport hand in hand, two worlds that are sometimes more similar than it seems. “I have been in the water polo elite for 15 seasons, and two at the head of the LGTBI secretariat that have served as good training for me to land in Congress and be more prepared than leaving directly from the pool to the bench, which would be more violent. Being on the front line has helped me prepare,” says Gutiérrez.

This week the water has been left out. I also couldn’t play yesterday with Canoe against Terrassa, his former team. The earthquake due to the possible resignation of Pedro Sánchez has altered his political agenda and, in his case, also his sporting one. Nothing he hasn’t gotten used to in this time. “Sport has gone from being my job to being my hobby. My priority is my political responsibilities. The person I write to the most is my coach, Emilio Bautista. I train and play a little on demand. If I have a trip, or a party congress or committee, I can’t go to the games. I am playing half of the League,” comments the water polo deputy.

Víctor Gutiérrez manages the stress of finding a couple of hours every day, “starting at seven or eight,” to jump into the water and stay in shape. Canoe is around three-quarters of the table in a competition of 12 teams in the Honor Division. “I am pleasantly surprised. From having gone from six hours a day to three or four sessions a week of two hours each, in the last two games he scored eight goals and won the MVP,” says Gutiérrez.

When he was eight years old, some older boys called him a faggot. He then began to hide his personality, to create “a mask”, to avoid being hurt. Until he was 17 when he told his best friend that he was gay. Until he found refuge in water polo and was on the cover of Shangay magazine as the first Spanish athlete in a team discipline to come out of the closet. That insult has never left him. The Serbian Nemanja Udovic, from Sabadell, shouted it again in 2021, when Gutiérrez was joining Terrassa. After getting out of the water, he published a video on social networks denouncing the incident and became the protagonist of the first sanction for homophobia in Spanish sport. From there to the triple leap into politics, first to the LGTBI secretariat of the PSOE and now as a deputy in Congress at a time of great upheaval.

“They told me that in Congress there was a kind of show in the Chamber but that later there was good vibes among the deputies, even with other colors. But I don’t know if it’s because of the current situation but that doesn’t happen here. You are in the cafeteria and don’t sit with the VOX guy, everyone goes with those of their own color,” she says; “In the water there are more blows, but once what happens happens, you get out of the pool and it stays there and then you go have a beer. In politics it is not like that. Hate speech is reflected in the street, and we see it with an uptick in attacks. There is a brutal responsibility that many politicians do not see. They are not going to carry out a coup, but another person on the street can carry it out… There is a dirty war, without scruples, it does not matter to invent news than to make a motto of an insult to the president. There is a serious problem in understanding politics as a football match, a scarf feeling. Before, nothing happened if someone was called a monkey or a faggot. Today Spanish football must catch up with current Spanish society.”

What does one world contribute to the other? “I was surprised that I am bringing a lot of coldness from politics to sport. You go at 200 beats per minute and I am very visceral. Politics is giving me that support, it has completed me as an athlete. On the contrary, sport has made me a disciplined person and have broad shoulders to withstand the pressure of politics. When you put yourself on the front line, you put on a label with a color and people who two days ago praised you criticize you,” Gutiérrez reasons, although he tries to avoid stereotypes: “We must negatively demystify politics and remove the mask of falsehood from sport. Also in my career I have had disastrous teammates who are happy if you get injured. There is healthy competition and bad competition. Politics takes the fame of Game of Thrones, let’s see who I can stab. And I found wonderful people who know how to compete.”

In the locker room, he says, there is “constant” talk about politics, and even more so these days. The Canoe buoy is still seat 1307 in Congress.

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