• Chronicle Spain remains two tenths from the top of canoeing: silver in the K4

  • Interview Interview with Craviotto: "When it's not in fashion, I'll keep my feet on the ground"

  • Medal This is how Spain goes

"Well, what? Let's go get a

chunk of

pizza, right?",

Rodrigo Germade

demands

and four men go to the Olympic Village in Tokyo to destroy the restaurant, to eat everything they couldn't in the previous months, to celebrate their success: a silver at the Tokyo Games. Germade,

Saúl Craviotto

,

Marcus Walz

and

Carlos Arévalo

came for a historic gold in the K4 500 - the queen of canoeing - and they do not hide it, but neither do they hide that second place is an intense joy "after everything we have experienced" . That is his tagline at the end of each answer: "After everything lived", "after everything lived", "after everything lived". But ... What was the experience?

"The pandemic was difficult to manage, but it was for all countries. In Spain, in addition, in the last year we had many internal selectives, many problems, and because of that we could not prepare this competition 100%. Even with all of them the stones on the road that we had, we arrived in very good shape and that is why this silver now knows us gold ", acknowledged Walz when he became a double Olympic medalist. At the Rio 2016 Games he was Olympic champion in the K1 1000, a test he abandoned to focus on the K4 500, one of the many sacrifices that team members had to make to hang the medal. There were other possible medals awarded to the cause, many efforts "to the point of exhaustion" in the Asturian channel of Trasona,there were all possible resources focused on the four and it was even necessary to go through a

family war

.

The new Olympic runners-up made references to her, although without wanting to. "It has been a very tough Olympic cycle, with many obstacles, a pandemic in between and many emotional ups and downs," said, for example, Saúl Craviotto in a historic moment for him:

his fifth medal after the gold at the 2008 Beijing Games. silver from the London 2012 Games and gold and bronze from the Rio 2016 Games

. Craviotto, already an Olympic legend, made reference to the complaint that everyone received, especially painful for him, of having rigged the previous selective to go to the Tokyo Games. Carlos Garrote, the canoeist who was left out, a world champion, accused the quartet of everything, with their leader at the fore, of having made a vacuum and the tsunami that formed upset their spirits.

"They are the best"

In the subsequent World Cup, in Hungary, they defeated Germany for the first and only time, but this Saturday the miracle was impossible, it was not all a matter of rage. "We tried, but it couldn't be," said Arevalo, the one who had the most tired face. As soon as the test was over and they reached the dock with the canoe, he and Craviotto stretched out on the ground, exhausted, and got up only to congratulate the Germans, brotherly rivals. Spain, as planned, went to break the race with a quick start, but Germany, the current champions, rallied in the last 50 meters. They were only separated by two tenths. Enough. "It is nothing new, they are the best and it is what there is. They have beaten us. We will have to work harder," promised Arevalo with a song to the future that is now in the air.Surely until January the four canoeists will not plan the Paris 2024 Games, but all of them highlighted, as a track, the good atmosphere of the group "after everything they experienced".

At the medal ceremony, everyone let Saúl Craviotto place the medal on them and, later, they went to deliver one of them, Arévalo's, to

Miguel García

, the team's coach, who was by far the most excited of everybody. After the photo with the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE),

Alejandro Blanco

, always attentive, and with several presidents of the federations that were there, such as

Luis Rubiales

, from soccer, or

Francisco Blázquez

, of handball, the four pointed out that without their teammates they would not have endured so many problems, so many sacrifices.

"This medal is for what we dream and for what we train during all these months. I had never trained so much. And I would not be here if it were not for these three beasts," said Germade, who after the many questions received, on televisions On the radio and press radio, he demanded the attention of the rest and asked: "Well, what? Let's go get a

piece of

pizza, right?"

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • sports

  • More sports JJOO

  • Spain Olympics

  • HBPR

Tokyo OlympicsInterview with standard bearer Saúl Craviotto: "When it's not in fashion, I'll keep my feet on the ground"

Tokyo OlympicsThe path between pain from Maialen Chourraut to silver: lumbago, dizziness and a cracked rib

Tokyo Games An imaginary rival, three minutes, seven judges and not a failure: this is kata, the form of karate in which Spain sweeps

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