“When I got injured before Tokyo it hurt my soul, but I overcame it very well,” said the 3,000 hurdles athlete.
PARIS, 8 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish athlete Irene Sánchez-Escribano, 31, stated that she would like to “put the cherry on top” of her career by competing in the Olympic final of the 3,000 hurdles at the Paris Games, where she would make her debut after the untimely injury 10 days after the previous one. edition of Tokyo 2020 that “hurt in the soul.”
“My great goal is to be in the final of the Olympic Games. I have never been to a Games, but I have been to 4 World Cups. And I am going to prepare with all the desire in the world to achieve it,” he assured in an interview with Europa Press. in Paris, which she visited as an ambassador for Iberia's 'Talent on board' program.
Less than six months before the Games, the Toledo middle distance runner 'touches wood' so that “everything goes well” in what would be her first Games, after a fracture in her left foot kept her away from the Japanese event three years ago.
“At the time I cried a lot and it hurt my soul, but it is true that I think I have overcome it very well. During that summer I even had a hard time watching the Olympic Games on television, but as the days went by and athletics began I was normalizing it. Now when people talk about Tokyo it doesn't hurt me either and I feel like it's a huge misfortune,” he commented.
Sánchez-Escribano considered that injuries “are part of sport” and blamed “bad luck, which was very opportune” for his 'pre-Olympic' injury. “I really like what I do. I enjoy my day to day, going to Europeans, World Cups and of course I want to be in Paris, do well and put the icing on the cake with an Olympic Games to the years I have had in my sporting career. I don't like it. I like to stay with the negative things,” he stressed.
Thanks to working with Madrid CAR psychologist Pablo del Río, Sánchez has returned “stronger.” “When I recovered and returned to training, I was very afraid of hurting myself again because the pre-Olympic injury did not warn me in any way. I was simply training and, suddenly, my bone broke,” he said.
After ten weeks without running, the obstacle specialist suffered periostitis and discomfort in one knee. “I had something about my foot and I was very scared. Pablo helped me overcome that fear and trust that we are training all day and it is normal for discomfort to appear. That we have to learn to live with them because I assumed the injury. I think that pretty good,” he insisted.
“A MEDAL IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE”
Spanish athletics shone in the last World Championships in Budapest, where they finished third in the medal table after the four golds of the walkers Álvaro Martín and María Pérez and the silver of Mohamed Katir. Instead, Sánchez tries to isolate himself and set his own goals together with his coach, psychologist, manager and physical trainer.
“There is a lot of talk about medals, but, realistically, a medal in 3,000 hurdles is something that I don't like to say is impossible, but almost,” admitted the Toledo native, who believes that the key to success is the help and changes of the training methods in Spanish athletics.
“It is a sum of everything, that has evolved, and the fact of seeing that someone who is by your side achieves it motivates you to see yourself capable of achieving it as well. I think that the fact that the general level has risen makes the youngest also come with more desire and with more confidence to see that they are also capable of being at the level of the rest of Europeans,” he explained.
In this sense, she celebrated that women are achieving more visibility thanks to the improvement of their results in the last Games. “We are beginning to be taken into account because we are not a 'miniature man' but rather women with our hormonal cycles, which greatly influence our performance.”
Competitiveness and well-understood competition is always, according to her, “healthy” because it can allow you to “improve your previous version.” “How many medals in Paris? Well, it's difficult, 2 for athletics and 23 for Spain. I have a lot of desire and enthusiasm for this year. I'm going to continue working with the same intensity and effort. I hope the result I achieve is a reflection of all the work of all these years,” he wished with the Eiffel Tower as a witness.