With less than 100 days until the start of the Olympic Games in Paris (they will do so on Friday, July 26), the rowers Dennis Carracedo and Aleix Garcia (CN Banyoles) are the only Girona athletes with a confirmed place. There will surely be more, with athletes Adel Mechaal and Esther Guerrero, basketball player Queralt Casas, and water polo player Blai Mallarach among the clearest options. But for now, it’s just them. They will, moreover, be their first Games, and in the preceding months they are preparing to the last millimeter a premiere that, aside from being historic, they also want it to be profitable. So much so that neither they, nor their coach, Carles Grabulosa, rule anything out. “We only think about doing the best we can, and we’re going to fight for the gold”, they say.
Dennis Carracedo and Caetano Horta, in light double scull, and Aleix Garcia and Rodrigo Conde, in heavy double scull, the days are already counting down to be at the Games. They tied the ticket, definitively, last February. But CN Banyoles could still have two more representatives, apart from coach Carles Grabulosa, in Paris. And it is that Jordi Jofre and Manel Balastegui, with the Andalusians Gonzalo García and Antonio Díaz, have a repechage next month in Lucerne to try to qualify for the 4 skull. They should finish in the top two, with Australia, Ukraine and Norway as their main rivals. “For Dennis and Aleix to go there is already a success for the club’s rowing team, an incredible success and a reward for good work. We’ve been doing things right for many years”, points out Grabulosa. Since 1996, when the Olympic ticket in rowing had to be obtained via a classification, only Teresa Mas de Xaxars and the Basque Mario Arranz (2004), and Manel Balastegui in 2021 in Tokyo, had achieved it. They obtained an Olympic diploma thanks to their seventh place (first in the final B).
Carracedo and Garcia, with their teammates, train from Monday to Saturday, for hours. Every day they row a minimum of 20-22 kilometers, and on the most days they can reach 50. Here you have to add work in the gym, cycling or running. They are sports professionals thanks to the ADO scholarships.
“We are clear that we each stand up to win the gold. We do everything in our power. We are not contenders for gold, the bets are not on us. but we want to finish by saying that we have done everything, and we will see what this gives us. Mentality and desire are gold”, says the coach, words and motivations that both Carracedo and Garcia subscribe to. On Sunday they left for Hungary to take part in the European Championship, which “will be good for us to have reference for the Games. The world rivals are all European”, points out the coach.
The two Banyon sailors are “thrilled” with their Olympic debut, which they believe comes at an optimal time. And this week they hope to show what they are capable of in Hungary.
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2024-04-23 04:02:16
#Dennis #Carracedo #Aleix #Garcia #Banyoles #sacrifice #Olympians
