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"Where is Ane?", "Have you talked to

Ane yet

?", The journalists asked her, there were even those who went to San Sebastián to interview the girl, so great was the sensation she caused at the 2016 Rio Games, when

Maialen Chourraut's

daughter

was the star of the gold celebration. But the canoeist did not want this time, already eight years old, to have so much attention on her, much less to be disturbed. For that reason, and due to the restrictions due to the coronavirus, of course, he did not travel with her as always and stayed in Spain with

Xabi Etxaniz's

sister

, her husband and coach, that is, with her aunt.

Although the process of getting everyone to be well from a distance, so well as to return with an Olympic silver, needed some adaptation. "We arrived here in Tokyo on the 9th, we are going to be three weeks old, and honestly it was an issue that worried us a lot. Until this year we had taken Ane to all competitions, we had traveled all over Europe, she had always slept with us, and Now suddenly, three weeks ... We tried everything, but with the rules of the Government of Japan it was impossible. So we decided to train him, as with everything. In the first test of the World Cup, which we had in Prague, Ane already she stayed with my sister and her children, with her cousins. We were in a hurry, but it was only going to be two days. And when we returned she was very happy, happy, she wanted to stay longer. That was a relief.Maialen did not know if, away from Ane, she would be calm enough to compete and she has been, she has been, "said Etxaniz about the girl who took the first dedication of the new Olympic runner-up.

Just at the end of her performance on the Kasai channel, air kisses for her, and as she got off the podium, with a stuffed animal of the mascot of these Games, Miraitowa, a futuristic cat, sent a message to the cameras: "Ane, zuretzako "I mean," Ane, for you. " According to Etxaniz, the whole family has poured into Ane, that she was happy, that she did not feel longing, and every day in Japan they maintain a tradition. As soon as the little girl gets up, around 8:00 a.m. in Spain, around 3:00 p.m. in Japan, the family gathers with a video call to cheer up the day. From there, nothing can go wrong.

"It is hard to be so far away, but when we speak we calm down a lot. She knows what we have gone through along the way and she also puts in a lot of effort so that her mother is well, so that her mother fulfills her dreams. The truth is that the only thing is What I'm looking forward to is to go home and see my little girl ", Chourraut acknowledged with the silver already hanging around his neck after a family change of those that always cost.

After the death of Chourraut's father in 2019, both the canoeist and her coach and husband, Etxaniz, agreed on the need to return home to San Sebastián and on the suitability of doing so just after the Tokyo Games, that is, the last summer. Even before they became a professional and personal couple, they had both lived in La Seu d'Urgell, a step away from Andorra, in a flat that was two minutes from the Olympic channel, but it was time to go back. And, despite the pandemic, they returned. Just after the end of the most severe confinement in Spain, a few days after the movements between communities were authorized, they left for the Basque Country and adapted all their routines. From getting ready next to home, to having to drive two hours to get to the Pau canal,from shoveling in the Segre river to doing it in the Bidasoa and the Uremea, where they have even placed doors.

"Every move has its own, but the truth is that back home we are very happy. Maialen has been very good in finding our way to these Games and Ane and me have also been very, very good, to be closer to the family ", Etxaniz acknowledges before making a video call of the celebration: on the other side, Ane, this time yes, far from the media's focus.

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