Javier Gómez Noya receives the Princess of Asturias award for sport

October 21, 2016Updated on October 21, 2016

2 reading minutes

Today the award ceremony of the Princess of Asturias awards for sports has been celebrated, where five-time Triathlon World Champion Javier Gómez Noya has been one of the protagonists

The Galician athlete, who was already among the candidates for the award last year when it fell to the brothers Pau and Marc Gasol, was one of the favorites for Olympic gold at the Rio de Janeiro Games, but an untimely fall weeks before the appointment it separated him from the possibility of adding his second medal.

“This award is thanks to a trajectory with many obstacles along the way. This year has been difficult, but you have to get over it and I'm already thinking about the next season that I hope will be successful”, stressed the triathlete in Oviedo. The King has presented him as a total athlete and "a symbol of illusion."

"For his indisputable and brilliant track record, for his effort and perseverance in the face of adversity, for being an example of improvement," said the King.

“The difficulties were one more stimulus in a sport classified as total. He is an athlete with not only physical strength, but also mental strength, and an admirable capacity for resistance. In each competition he puts into play the values that have made him an undisputed champion. He is a true model for those who want to reach the top of a sport and a symbol of positive and admirable spirit. He is a symbol of the best values of the sport”

Video of the awards ceremony

The story of Javier Gómez Noya

Javier Gómez Noya is the current World and European champion and only triathlete with five world titles, his career progressed rapidly, proclaiming Spain's duathlon champion and 23 sub triathlon and junior European champion, despite the bureaucratic obstacles he had to save after be detected a heart disease.

Javier Gómez Noya was born in 25 March 1983 in Basel (Switzerland), where his parents worked, but when he was three months his family moved to live in the town of Ferrol in Corunna. At the 11 years he began to practice swimming, a sport in which he soon began to achieve regional titles in the lower categories.

In 1998 he made his debut in the Olympic triathlon of Castropol (Asturias), where, without having trained the modalities of cycling and running, he finished second in the youth category. Since then he has devoted himself exclusively to this modality, in which he has achieved numerous successes, including five world titles and the silver medal in the Olympic Games in London, the first of a Spanish in this discipline.

Video motivation Javier Gómez Noya