Gustavo Oliva

Gustavo Oliva grew up in Terrassa, near Barcelona, the city where he lived for the rest of his life. His first sport was tennis, and as a boy he finished third in Catalonia in the under 12 category, as he told La Vanguardia in his last interview. He studied at Esade business school in Barcelona. He married young and, with work and the arrival of his first daughter, stepped away from competitive sport for a period.

Oliva discovered padel in his late twenties, while working for the sports retailer Intersport, and the game stayed with him for more than 25 years as a player, coach and promoter of sporting projects. In 2012 he was ranked among the top 50 players in Spain and the top ten in Catalonia. From 2014 to 2017 he was captain of the Catalan team.

He founded Padel Academy Barcelona, ran training programmes in Hungary and took part in directing the Central European padel circuit. He was also coordinator of activities at the Atletic Terrassa club.

In parallel he built a career in the sports equipment industry. As marketing and product director at Asics he helped develop the brand's presence in padel, and he later worked as a category manager at Asics Europe BV.

Oliva was married to Imma, and they had two daughters, who were 33 and 30 at the time of his death. He told La Vanguardia that seeing his daughters settled, with jobs and lives that were going well, had helped him face his illness differently, and that his only sadness was that he would not live to become a grandfather. He kept playing padel tournaments and cycling long distances in the weeks between his cancer treatments.

About three years before his death, Oliva was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. By the time he was tested, he said, there were two large tumours with metastases in the liver and spleen and affected lymph nodes. He explained that he had not responded to the screening invitations from the Catalan government that he received after turning 50. The first year of chemotherapy went well, but each year the treatment was less effective, and by March 2026 he had accepted that he was living on borrowed months.

On 7 October 2026 he posted a farewell on Instagram announcing that his life was coming to an end, thanking his family and friends and warning that, had he followed basic prevention advice, the cancer would surely have been caught in time. The post spread widely and was reported across the Spanish press. A few days before his death he spoke to La Vanguardia from the palliative care unit of the Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili in Barcelona, saying he hoped his story would save lives.

He was sedated on the morning of Monday 19 October 2026 and died at midday, aged 58. His death was reported by La Vanguardia, El Confidencial, El Mundo, ABC and Marca. A wake opened at noon on 20 October at the Terrassa funeral home, and a farewell ceremony was held at 11 a.m. on 21 October 2026 in the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit (Catedral del Sant Esperit) in Terrassa.

Within Catalan padel Oliva was known as a player, captain, coach and organiser who helped the sport grow at home and in Central Europe, and as the executive who brought Asics into the game. To a far wider public he will be remembered for turning his own death into a warning: his farewell message prompted many readers to promise they would book screening tests, which was, he said, all he wanted.