Naia Bilbao, a 17-year-old from Barakaldes, took bronze on October 30 in the kata modality of the Karate World Championship in the cadet, junior and sub-21 categories held in Turkey. There she went as part of the Spanish women’s team, and she ended up winning third place by beating the Turkish team by more than one point in the decisive duel.
On October 30th you won the bronze medal in the Karate World Cup. Tell us, what does that victory mean to you?
Having been proclaimed third in the world last October has been for me, and especially for my career as an athlete, a before and after, because it has been the most important goal I have achieved to this day. That means that every sacrifice and every workout ultimately pays off and makes all the effort worthwhile.
In your case, how many hours do you dedicate to karate?
I train Monday, Wednesday and Friday, between one and two hours, and then, apart from that, on weekends I usually train both in the Euskadi National Team and in my gym.
So, it is true that it is good that so much sacrifice is recognized, so many hours of training almost every day, etc. It’s good that they are useful for something.
How many years have you been at this?
I started when I was 5 years old in what was my old school and since then I have always done karate.
Why karate and not another sport?
Since I was little I have been a very active girl who liked sports a lot. I had always been good at gymnastics and since my family is also very athletic, my dad has always played soccer and my mistress also did judo for 20 years, among the extracurricular activities offered by the school they looked at the one that most resembled judo and so on. they found karate. It was by chance more than anything.
So, they enrolled me in karate and I spent a couple of years in that school gym until, at some point, the teacher told me that I had enough level to be able to go to a federated club, so to speak, to be able to compete at a level region or whatever.
At first I didn’t want to, because when I was little I was very shy, so I stayed one more year at school, but since I saw that nothing was progressing and that I was at a much higher level than the others, I decided to go to the one that is Currently my club, Santa Teresa, which is where I’ve been for 10 years. They are literally my second family because I spend almost more time in the gym than at home.
What is your next goal?
Since karate is no longer Olympic, it has only been a year and they have already removed it from the Olympics, because as an important objective, so to speak, it would be to be able to go to the next World Championship, which is held every two years, try to arrive and repeat the role or even improve it.
