Pilar Alegría: “In the athlete’s career, training and sport must go hand in hand”

• The event has made it possible to celebrate the fifteen years of history of the High Level Athlete Care Program (PROAD).

• With respect to 2018, the Higher Sports Council has increased the allocation of this program by 69%, which offers comprehensive and personalized guidance and advice to the entire group of high-level athletes (DAN), in order to facilitate the development of a quality dual career and help them in the transition after their withdrawal.

• Since its creation in 2009, PROAD has facilitated the insertion into the labor market of more than 1,600 athletes.

Madrid, October 9, 2025.- The Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, Pilar Alegría, and the Secretary of State for Sport, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, presented this Thursday the CSD-Dual Career Awards, a recognition with which the Higher Sports Council values the double sporting and academic merit of the athletes of our country.

The swimmers Anastasiya Dmytriv and Óscar Salguero, medalists in the Paralympic Games of Paris 2024, have received from the hands of the minister Pilar Alegría the highest distinctives in school and university category, respectively, standing out among all the candidacies for their academic records and their sports results.

I was very lucky to accompany both of them at the Paris Games and to see how they looked like athletes, but also to see their involvement from an academic point of view. Everything is linked in the values that Anastasiya Dmytriv and Óscar Salguero project. Athletes have acquired values that make them unique, such as their discipline, their perseverance, their ability to grow as a team, to inspire and to make others better,” said Pilar Alegría.

During the presentation of the CSD-Dual Career Awards, the minister stressed the importance that “education and sport are intertwined to build a life rich in achievements and learning.” “In the athlete’s career, training and sport must go hand in hand,” he said.

In this sense, Pilar Alegría has praised the value of the High Level Athlete Care Program (PROAD), a tool with which the CSD offers “a personalized, close and human accompaniment” to athletes, betting on their “integral development”. “Because their lives don’t end when the last horn sounds or the finish line is reached,” he said.

During the event, the president of the CSD, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, has also awarded honorable mentions in the school category to Esther Fuerte (rowing), Carlota Badorrey (hockey) and Daniela Suárez (artistic swimming) and in the university category to Héctor Díez (artistic skating), Tania Álvarez (canoeing) and Marta García (weightlifting), the other great protagonists of these CSD-Dual Career Awards.

Rodríguez Uribes has assured that all of them embody “the philosophy of PROAD, a program of integral help to the athlete for the development of his dual career”.

Fifteen years of accompaniment to the athlete through PROAD

The award of the CSD-Dual Career Awards is part of the celebration of the fifteen years of existence of the High Level Athlete Care Program (PROAD), with which the CSD offers comprehensive and personalized guidance and advice to the entire group of high level athletes (DAN) in order to facilitate the development of a quality dual career and help them in the transition to a professional career.

In 2025, the endowment of this program amounts to 1,042,000 euros, which is 69% more than in 2018.

Through this program, the CSD has offered comprehensive advice to more than 10,000 athletes of all ages and disciplines. The public and private entities that collaborate with PROAD contribute to its success, quantified in the incorporation of more than 1,600 athletes into the labor market.

As a sign of thanks to all of them, the CSD has recognized on Thursday the companies, universities, schools and foundations collaborating in this program, which has given personalized attention to great figures of Spanish sport, such as the handball player Albert Rocas, who now holds a managerial position in the College of Students, or the athlete Aauri Bokesa, advisor in the Presidency Cabinet of the Higher Sports Council.

During the event, Marta Aznar, a medalist in the Junior European Championship of archery and one of the young athletes currently mentored by the High Level Athlete Care Program, also presented her experience.

“The very name of the program evokes one of the main responsibilities of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports: to accompany and care for athletes from their first steps in high performance and high level, in their days of glory and in the weeks of dissatisfaction. Also, very especially, in their academic training and in their transition to working life. PROAD exists for and by athletes. They represent the best face of our country,” concluded Pilar Alegría.