Hidalgo hopes that the Spanish triathlon will remove "the thorn" in London 2012
The president of the Spanish Triathlon Federation (FETRI), José Hidalgo Martín, has expressed his hope that the London 2012 Olympic Games will allow Spanish triathlon to “remove its thorn” and achieve Olympic success, mainly in the men's section. after the diploma of the last appointment.
“The background for London 2012 is good, I like to think that part of the objective is the path and along that path very interesting things have happened since Spain is one of the more than one hundred countries that have classified the maximum number of men and women.” ", and we are going with options," Hidalgo declared in an interview with Efe, after attending last night in Ceuta the presentation of the 2011 trophies of the Ceuta Federation of this sport.
Regarding the possibilities of Spain, Hidalgo has indicated: “for girls Ainhoa Murúa, Zuriñe Rodríguez and Marina Damlaimcourt, who are the ones who can be there, have options due to maturity and because their time has come to be in an Olympic diploma, while for boys Javier Gómez Noya, Iván Raña and Mario Mola they give to dream of a medal”.
The president of the FETRI has warned about the main rivals and has stated that they will be “the English and the Germans, since Jan Frodeno He is a man of the Olympic Games, although I believe that eight or nine athletes will surely arrive with medal options, among them those who play locally like the brothers Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee, but running at home has an extra cost and extra motivation.”
Regarding the Olympic event, he assessed that Spain is one of the six countries in the world that currently has the maximum participation and highlighted: “we have three men and three women, which is the maximum we can have.”
Hidalgo has defended the “good health” of the Spanish triathlon “based on the fact that the federated world is stagnant and in crisis, while popular sport continues to increase, but triathlon has been growing at over 18 percent for more than a decade.” the number of licenses.”
The number of organizers and clubs has also grown and he has argued that “we have surpassed the 15 percent mark and we have athletes like Javier Gómez Noya, Iván Raña or Mario Mola who are fighting to be world champions or be in the Olympics. ”.
The FETRI leader recalled that "since Iván Raña was world champion in Cancún in 1992, we have always, in all the World Championships, had a Spaniard who has been on the podium or fighting for it."
"We are a sport - he continued - that transmits a good social image, transmits values and is very close to the sporting reality and that is why we grow, so we must try to lay the foundations for it to continue growing."
He has been optimistic about the possibility of maintaining this rate of growth because "triathlon is in fashion, it is a sport that arouses a lot of sympathy among fans and those who know this modality end up staying, but we are afraid that this, which is abnormal in terms of “Growth and interest at some point have to return to normal.”
José Hidalgo, who has advanced the implementation of a national project to popularize triathlon and added that “we are knowing how to interpret what people want and we are trying to keep up with the times. "We are trying to develop triathlon in all autonomous communities equally, we have great roots throughout the national territory."
Regarding the delivery of the Gold Medal for Sports Merit awarded by the Higher Sports Council and received on October 5, he stated that “it was a recognition of triathlon, of what it has achieved in being a sport, the last to enter Sydney in the Olympic Games, and now we have gone from being the tail end of the Olympic sports van to asking for a leading role in the middle zone.”
On his first official visit to Ceuta, he acknowledged that: “Spain ends up being very big but I have always had a very close relationship with this city since it has very active people in this sport.” EFE
Source: abc.es