Carolina Marin retires: The Spanish trailblazer who hated finishing second, was unapologetically aggressive and took on Asian dominance

Marin abhorred second place – her only silver significant medal coming in the 2023 World Championships, after golds in 2014, ’15 and ’18. In flaming red gear mostly, hair pinned into a strident top bun, the high forehead gnashing for a crown through a tournament week, she would grin only when she won.

Even her absences on court were devoted single-mindedly to winning the next big title, so the comebacks never seemed gingery, safe or careful. There was no trace of setting some longevity goals, no excuses for early exits, no gentle lead-ups to the peak. When she was on court, she dove at every shuttle, pounced the net like a tigress rattling a cage, dragged shuttles to her own side to hurry serves and not give opponents a breather, and thwacked at the shuttle with a breathtaking arm speed and short swing – the speed never compromised on at the altar of pragmatism.

Mi camino acaba aquí. Gracias a todos, porque también habéis formado parte de ello. En esta nueva aventura llevaré conmigo los valores que me han acompañado hasta ahora e intentaré devolver a la sociedad todo lo que me ha dado en este tiempo. Ha sido un viaje maravilloso ♥️ pic.twitter.com/3aKNDo0Mc4

— Carolina Marín (@CarolinaMarin) March 26, 2026

Marin did not ration energy or hunger – it was all or nothing, and the high intensity cost her the Paris Olympics final, when the knee caved once again, as she was racing to a win against He Bingjiao in the semifinals. But that was the only way she knew to play; winning, the only likely result. “Deep down, I did retire from court, in Paris in 2024, we just didn’t know it at the time,” she would say.

There was nothing, save the wild belief of coach Fernando Rivas, no harbinger out of Huelva, a serene town in Spain, to indicate Carolina would emerge out of the tennis-mad nation. Rivas had picked out a lanky Spanish teen shuttler because she didn’t stop being a fighter. Everything else could be taught – the left-handed smashes hand-hurled into opponents, the stomp and accuracy at the net, the unshiftable belief that the only winner possible was her. The hell-raising screaming – a cultural shock in genteel Asian badminton – was both an outlet of her brimming energy and a means to shatter the nervous equilibrium of opponents. He Bingjiao once started sobbing and frittered away five match points.

But you had to really not know badminton to think Marin couldn’t follow up loud sound with lightning strokes.

With her attack, she could’ve been excused for a half-hearted defense. But Marin’s shuttle control stayed watertight, the patience and discipline to reach a winning kill, an ode to her determination to win. Rivas would later say that they treated Saina Nehwal with much caution, because she mirrored that appetite to chomp and chew out her opponent’s resolve. Marin’s record suggests Chinese Chen Yufei, her Olympic successor, was the one other opponent who dug her heels in, just like the Spaniard.

Marin announced her arrival, defeating 2012 Olympic champion Li Xuerui at the 2014 World’s. The top Chinese had defeated her earlier, but after 2014, Marin paid no heed to the powerhouse, their history, their hard work. She outdid all their numbers. At the Rio Games, what Marin unfurled was her ability to soak up a first-set loss, crank up the amplifying woofers, utter nasty scythables under her breath, and break PV Sindhu’s game with speed, a recurring theme through their face-offs.

Marin’s wasn’t a complete game. But the self-awareness of where she lacked, and the ability to blitz through tense moments to shatter serenity that Asian strokemakers liked, helped Marin dominate a decade on sheer pace. The knees were bound to suffer, but she wasn’t one to pull back from a proper scrap.

Much is said about how someone from Spain, with no badminton pedigree, did all this. But with a racquet in hand, and wheels beneath her feet, Marin simply did not think badminton was a preserve of Asian powerhouses when her country boasted of the finest sports science. Not only did she believe she belonged; she made a fair few others doubt, if they did. Her retirement address sadly didn’t end with ‘Unapologetically, yours.’

“Yah, I like to scream. It’s my voice, no?” she once asked, beaming a hundred watts.