• Tokyo: Spanish archers exiled in Turkey

The delay of the Olympic Games to 2021 has completely disrupted the vital calendar of many athletes who had their particular change of needles in Tokyo . Beyond iconic names, such as Pau Gasol, Alejandro Valverde or Saúl Craviotto, with the hourglass tightening for their age, stories without so much focus arise from athletes who, suddenly, find themselves with a completely shaken schedule. It has happened to Miguel Alvariño , the only Spanish goalkeeper with a place won for the appointment now postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

He is young, only 25 years old, but he was meditating leaving the competition after the Games and getting to work, taking advantage of his technical studies in mechanics. He had already practiced in a workshop, although he preferred to enter through the branch of industrial maintenance. In those he was, always with the Olympic tournament as the center of his universe. Ambitious, the medal was his goal . Plans that changed date only.

Well, who knows, the same next year, after Tokyo, I dare to continue to Paris. Only three years will then remain ... I would have to see it », he reflects with a Galician pause, leaving between each word a few tenths of a second through which the sound of the field filters through. The rain falls in As Pontes , province of La Coruña, and in the background you can hear the noise of the water and the clucking of some hen. «They are from the Piñeira race , native to here. I raise them as a hobby . We also have goats and sheep. As there is enough space ... », he recounts about the house and the family land where the confinement is happening, waiting for the Government to authorize elite athletes to go out to train in the coming weeks. "Better than in a flat in the city, for sure", intuits and hits. However, not so much amplitude is enough to maintain the training rhythm that your specialty needs.

A bullseye in the garage

The 70 meters outdoors from where he will launch in Tokyo is now changed by the three meters indoors in the basement. Down there he practices every morning before a small parapet and a target that the Spanish Federation has sent him. For two hours, the technicians direct the exercises of the national team, Alvariño among them, through a group video call. They are short shots, without the environmental variants that influence the flight of the arrow so much, but at least it serves to improve the movements, qualifies the leading shooter of the selection. "It is good for technique. The posture of arms, feet, shoulders ... It is the same as it was, although the objective here is much closer, "says Miguel, who suffers when the connection sometimes fails.

Alvariño rehearses the pitch, in the home garden.EM

Then, after practice, it's time to take care of your muscles with blackroll rollers , a type of massage that replaces the wise hands of the physiotherapist, now prohibited due to the safety distances required by the virus. This session is also monitored by the Federation trainers , just like the previous gym task. The entire team had to separate at the end of March, when they decided to return from Turkey, where they had concentrated to continue the Olympic preparation once the State of Alarm closed the sports facilities in Spain. Two days earlier, the archery team had set out for Antalya , where restrictions had barely begun.

While those classified for Tokyo suffered in the national territory the drought of apparatus, gyms, athletics tracks or swimming pools, Alvariño and his companions exercised freely in the Mediterranean sun. They were still going on at that time in the hope that the Games could be saved from viral burning. But when it was postponed, there was little point in staying there. Also in Turkey the thing was also getting ugly, and the flights back to Spain were beginning to get complicated. And we wanted to be with our families, "says Miguel of those turbulent days.

'I believe, I want and I can'

Without Tokyo and under confinement, there is no other choice but to train in the best way possible and keep a cool head. «I continue with my sessions with the psychologist. Last year I asked him if he was willing to help me win an Olympic medal and he said yes, "continues the archer, who would tattoo three words on his arm if it weren't for the needles who panic. His are the arrows. "'I believe, I want and I can.' That is my philosophy ”, he explains, convinced that it is not a dream to become the first shooter to reach the podium in the Games in the individual category (for the team he won the gold in Barcelona 92 ).

After a bad experience in Rio 2016 , where he acknowledges that he arrived without adequate preparation, he thought about leaving the sport. But on a vacation with his girl, also a shooter, she was encouraged again. Almost without intending to, he was already enrolled again in the selection. The talent and the aim that he always had, he got ambition and a superior competitive mentality, as well as a level up in physical preparation and diet. In this way he won the place for Tokyo, which he will use in 2021.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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