Pinito del Oro

María Cristina del Pino Segura Gómez, known as Pinito del Oro (6 November 1931 – 25 October 2017), was a Spanish trapeze artist and novelist. She specialised in the Washington trapeze. She was perhaps best known for her seven-year run with Ringling Circus.

Early life María Cristina del Pino Segura Gómez was born on 6 November 1931 in the neighborhood of Guanarteme (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria). She was the youngest of the seven children who lived of the 19 children her mother had. All the siblings became artists.

Career During a Christmas in Valencia, when she was working in a small circus, Pinito was seen by a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey representative during a European trip, which led to the circus offering her a job. She accepted the offer and moved to the United States with her husband.

Pinito suffered three near-fatal falls in Huelva, Sweden and Laredo. She would soon fracture her skull again, her hands three times, and had to undergo foot surgery to raise her toes since they curved from the frequent contact with the trapeze, 12 to 16 meters above the ground. She retired from the trapeze permanently on April 17, 1976.

In 2017, after receiving the Gold Medal of Canarias, she declared, reflecting on her life: "I just felt happy on the trapeze. I have triumphed in the artistic world, I achieved everything, but on a personal level the balance is not so positive."

Death Pinito del Oro died from a stroke on 25 October 2017 at her home in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria at the age of 86. She is depicted as a wax statue in the Wax Museum of Madrid.

In June 2024, Canarias' Film Archive (Filmoteca Canaria) announced the reception of Juan Lucas Abreu's donation of Pinito's audiovisual archive from 1950 to 1960. It comprised 16 mm film rolls, VHS cassettes and other images in super-8 format. These materials were digitized in Santa Cruz de Tenerife's Historical Provincial Archive.

The 2026 movie Tal vez, by Spanish director Arima León, is inspired by hers and poetess Natalia Sosa Ayala's decade-long epistolar romantic relationship. The actress Adriana Ugarte plays Pinito del Oro, while Tania Santana plays Natalia Sosa. Sosa published their exchanged letters in 1996, on which Arima León's movie is based, in her literary work From my attic and other articles. Neurosis. Letters (Desde mi desván y otros artículos. Neurosis. Cartas).

The house of culture of Albaladejo in the province of Ciudad Real takes the name "Pinito del Oro" in honor of Pinito's mother, who was a citizen of this locality in Castile-La Mancha. Inclusion in the Circus Ring of Fame (2014) Gold Medal of Canarias (2017)