Updated:07/09/2021 21:59h
Keep
The sailors of the Spanish Olympic sailing team left today July 9 at 5:50 p.m., bound for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Their flight, with a stopover in Paris, is scheduled to land in Haneda (Tokyo) at 18 : 30 Japanese local time on Saturday 10. There, once an exhaustive entry control to the Japanese country has passed, they will be received by a representative of the city of Zushi, which is hosting the Spanish team before their transfer to the Olympic Village, and by Santi López Vázquez, RFEV Olympic Preparation Director, who arrived in Tokyo last week.
Tomorrow, the delegation of eleven people who are already in Japan will be joined by the rest of the technicians and personnel of the multidisciplinary team as well as the 15 athletes who will represent Spain in the Tokyo Olympic Games by sailing. 7 women and 8 men who will defend the national pavilion in each of the 10 participating classes, a milestone only equaled by Great Britain and Japan, the latter as host country: Támara Echegoyen and Paula Barceló on 49er FX; Diego Botín and Iago López Marra in 49er; Tara Pacheco and Florian Trittel at Nacra 17; Silvia Mas and Patricia Cantero at 470 F; Jordi Xammar and Nicolás Rodríguez at 470 M; Blanca Manchón in RS: XF; Ángel Granda in RS: XM; Cristina Pujol in Laser Radial; Joel Rodríguez in Laser Standard and Joan Cardona in Finn.
A great team in which the Balearic Joan Cardona stands out for two reasons, being the youngest and having been the last to stamp his passport to Tokyo, as well as being one of the 3 number 1s in the world that our sailors hold. When asked about the vertigo that this amalgam of circumstances could cause him before his first Olympic Games, Cardona was confident and with great force: “I am the smallest of the team but I really want to do well and I am very well prepared. I was also the last to qualify, but I liked feeling that pressure that it was the last chance and also with Finn, my class, saying goodbye to the Games. I think all of that gave me a push to get the best of myself and I hope to be able to get it out again during the Games.
I really want to show all the work we have done, to show that we are in Tokyo to fight for the medals. The nerves are not very present yet; Now the illusion weighs more, but I’m sure that as the moment to go out to the race course approaches, they will tighten their nerves more and I like that. I feel comfortable with that feeling of nervousness and knowing that I am there representing my country ”.
The entire team begins its routine in Enoshima, the Olympic sailing venue, when the countdown marker to the Tokyo2020 Games marks 15 days, exactly two weeks until the starting horn of the first regatta sounds. Until then, the schedule is tight and rigorous, starting with a few days of adaptation to the schedule and acclimatization, while finalizing the preparation of the boats to begin training in the water on July 15, the first day allowed by the organization of the Games.
A final sprint dominated by the same hard work that has governed the lives of these elite athletes for the last five years, and which has led the crew of the Catalan Silvia Mas and the Canarian Patricia Cantero to face the Games as champions of the world in its class, the female 470. For them it will also be their first Olympic Games, a reason for uncertainty before which Silvia Mas has chosen “Talk a lot with people who take their second and third Games”, and try to continue with your routine so as not “Deviate and not have thoughts that cause extra pressure”.
“I think arriving as world champions is something positive because being able to say that a few months before the Games we are up there means that the work has been doing well, that we are on the right track, and that also makes you have more confidence in yourself . Now it’s time to check all the boat settings, check in the water that everything is correct and adapt to the race course ”.
On Wednesday the 14th the Spanish expedition will move to the Enoshima Olympic Village. So far, the athletes will remain in the city of Zushi along with the first group of technicians and multidisciplinary team that traveled to Tokyo on July 3 and has been in charge of unloading the containers in which the material was sent, as well as well as the logistics of adaptation and training.
See them
comments
.
