• Cross: The feat of Mario Mola: seventh in the championship of Spain

"Until the day that touches a smooth shoot you go to the fullest ..." As if it were a puzzle of thousands of pieces, the preparation of Javier Gómez Noya is a fit for workouts, breaks, meals, trips, form peaks and competitions. With age and his tenacious stay in the elite, everything is measured to the millimeter, more if it touches the Olympic year, more if it will be the last Games. "I wake up at seven in the morning and until eight in the afternoon my life is triathlon ."

But how does it affect an earthquake that suddenly suspends competitions and even questions the very celebration of the Tokyo event? The coronavirus in sport are not just football matches behind closed doors. They are sports athletes not so mass that they leave their lives first to be in a Games and then because that specific day of every four years everything goes well. In the case of the Galician, world legend and triathlon ambassador, already with the Ironman as a clear and profitable destination after having debuted in Hawaii in 2018, the race is not played in what would be his third Games - Rio was lost after a previous fall in which the elbow was broken, but the uncertainty of opportunity that will never be presented again stalks him like so many others.

"In such a situation, I think about adapting, being efficient and doing what I can," Gómez Noya commented on Monday with his usual phlegm, stopping in Madrid for an event with Banco Santander. For now, its road map has already been modified with the suspension of the first World Series test , which had to be played on Friday in Abu Dhabi. After his period of concentration and preseason in New Zealand in which he was surrounded by a group of Spanish triathletes - among them David Castro -, Javi intended to debut at the Arab meeting as a touchdown ("I was not going to take it as a great objective, both for the date and for being a sprint "), return to training in Pontevedra and play on April 18 the next, in Bermuda, already in Olympic distance. Although now ...

Others who will fight him for gold in Tokyo - "I don't sign a bronze" - took alternatives to the race. Mario Mola signed up for the Spanish cross championship on Sunday in Zaragoza - he finished with an amazing seventh place - and Alistair Brownlee for the Duathlon European of Punta Humbría (bronze medal). For example. Changing plans improvisedly can become common practice. "I do not rule out doing some local test to maintain the competitive point. I will continue the preparation in Pontevedra and look for a popular race or a triathlon of less level," admitted Gómez Noya, even without warning signs.

The five-time world champion's feeling is a mixture of resignation and uncertainty. Like that of so many others. "We have to prepare ourselves and think that the races are going to be played. We have to be patient, assume these changes that nobody likes, but that are for the common good of all," he says, with the only hope that, finally, Everything will be fine. "I do not have privileged information. If the Games are suspended, it would be due to a force majeure. We will have to assume the decisions that are made. My feeling, I do not know if more a wish, is that the Games are going to be played . situation with tranquility because it is not in the hand of the athletes. I hope they are celebrated, but I have no anxiety. I try to control the things that are within my reach. I will not worry about something that I do not know if it will happen, "he concluded Your plea for common sense.

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