MADRID, 6 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The captain of the women’s water polo team, Pili Peña, asked to “forget” what has been achieved in the past to “start from scratch” for the World Cup in Japan, to which “a more stable team” will go, with unity” as a of their strengths, while recalling that there are still “many competitions” before the Paris Games for those who are “potential Olympic champions”.
“Each championship that we start, each summer that we start training, you forget everything from behind and it’s like starting from scratch. And what you have left is the illusion, the desire to enjoy what you do every day. Even if you train for so many hours , we have to enjoy it every day”, Peña commented on his vision of the team he captains in an interview with Europa Press after an event of the Royal Spanish Swimming Federation (RFEN).
Peña, silver in London 2012 and Tokyo 2020 and world champion (2013) and two-time continental champion (2014 and 2020), is a fundamental pillar of a team that continues to regenerate, although “it is already much more stable” and “adapted” for the future. the next year. “We have to continue making that unity, that union between us, to be able to achieve the results. I think that in the end the key to success is that we are united and that we trust each other to be able to do the best possible individually. That will be the collective medal”, commented.
“The experience that I have personally and what I try to transmit to the little ones is above all that union between us and that trust. Helping us in good times and in bad times,” she added about the importance of forming a “family” in the face of improve sports performance.
And it is that Peña, 37, is comfortable with her role as a veteran within the group. “I love combining my experience with what they have just started to do, to create them, to tell the story. They also teach me that hope, that desire, that humility that I think we should always have,” she said.
“Above all, I must be the first to do in the water what I say to them, what I ask of them. It is not only to speak, but also to demonstrate every day and be the first and the example in which they can reflect themselves and that can copy”, he affirmed about his role with the youngest in the selection.
“WE HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS”
And he asks those less experienced players for “humility” and “willingness to work” to be part of a team that already has two Olympic silvers, one gold and two World Cup silvers and three golds, one silver and one bronze in Europe. “Obviously there has to be talent, but in the end it’s a lot of work and we have the best physical trainers. Having desire, enthusiasm and above all believing in ourselves,” she explained.
“Wanting to learn and wanting to be better, not having a roof, not thinking ‘to win you have to do this’. No, to win you don’t know what to do, so whatever, whatever they tell you is going to be the What is best for us is what we have to do”, she completed about the ‘recipe’ for success.
And the team led by Peña will be the main block that will presumably play the Paris Games in 2024, for which there is less left than in other Olympics, due to the pandemic. “We have a lot of competition in the middle and I, personally, think about short-term goals. Fukuoka, which is this summer, the World Cup. And from there, well, we’ll see, because there are many more competitions, there’s the World Cup, there’s another European, the leagues, the Games”, related.
“It is better to take short-term objectives than to look so long-term, it is better to have your feet on the ground and go little by little. For a new competition you forget everything else, everything you have won, we only keep what we have lost, because that will surely teach me more than winning. Nobody gives you the assurance that having won a World Cup you will win the next one,” he warned about conformism and hunger.
For Paris, his “real goal” is “to really work every day thinking about the Games.” “If we do all that work well, I think there can be good results. If we train, surely we have the potential to be Olympic champions,” Peña wished.
Finally, the captain of the team did not forget to highlight the continuity of her team among the best, “based on work and discipline”, as “the most important thing”. “Discipline is super important. I think that with that you have a lot of cattle. Because an athlete, no matter how talented he is, has to take great care of discipline,” she said.
“It has always been said that everything in excess is bad. In my case, it’s true that when you get older, you throw more psychology than physical and I think it’s very important. Now it’s a very psychological moment, I spend a lot of time on myself. You train so many hours that you need it. The only thing you think about is going out with friends, I don’t know what, but we still need to look at ourselves individually a lot,” Peña concluded about the mental factor.