The athlete Álvaro Martín, double world champion of 20 and 35 kilometer walk, celebrates having “the luck and privilege” of the Paris Games arriving in his “best moment of form” and of his sporting career, at the same time He is “sad” about the latest cases of doping in Spanish athletics, although he believes they are “good news” because it means that “it seems that now the Spanish Anti-Doping Commission (CELAD) is working.”
“We have been thinking about Paris for a long time, not only this year, but in previous years. Obviously, it is the most important goal of the year, for all athletes their dream is to be in the Games. I am lucky and privileged that I am in my best moment of form, in the best moment of my sports career. Already subtracting those days so that it arrives as soon as possible,” Martín expressed in an interview with Europa Press.
The 29-year-old from Llerena was awarded last Tuesday at the Gourmet Show held at Ifema Madrid with the Picota del Jerte 2024 Excellence Award, after being declared double champion in Budapest last year at the World Cup in Budapest (Hungary). 20 and 35 kilometers march. A background that makes him dream of Olympic gold.
“Everything indicates that due to the experience, the physical condition in which I arrived and that responsibility of having achieved great results, everything looks good. Then there will be other factors that we cannot control, but we have it much more in mind than in other years,” he reiterated. .
Although Martín wanted to make it clear that he faces “all competitions thinking more about having done a good preparation and capturing” what he has trained, which is why he is not obsessed with medals. “If a teammate from another country has done better preparation and has competed better than you, ‘slap’, shake his hand and that’s it,” he explained.
“Now I have good preparations and I arrive very well. I only ask for that, to get the result for what I have trained. I don’t ask for more. If that is a medal, welcome. If that is a fourth place, as happened to me in Tokyo, It is something bitter, but in the end you accept it because it is natural, it is competition and here we each have to try to fight to give the best of ourselves,” he added.
And even though it is a Games year, the physical preparation “is no different” from a World Cup or European course, because “the demands are the same.” However, Martín is aware that an Olympic medal would be the icing on the cake to his great moment. “Everything that surrounds the Olympic Games is very different,” he acknowledged.
“There comes a mental preparation that is more important, even than the physical one. There are more journalists who want to get an interview, they put that pressure of the medal on you, we have to be prepared not to lose focus and be able to be as calm as possible and focused as possible for the Games,” he hoped.
In this sense, the Extremaduran athlete admits that he has been working with a sports psychologist for “several years now.” “We knew that coming from being two-time world champion the previous year he was a ‘medal winner’, as he calls it, and that there was going to be a lot of pressure,” Martín said.
“We don’t say pressure, we say responsibility. It’s a euphemism, but it seems more appropriate to me. And we are prepared because it is not the first time we are in this situation. We are going to try not to let all the external noise affect us, or let it affect us as little as possible,” he said about the pressure generated by achieving results for an event like the Games.
“IN THE MIXED RELAY THERE IS UNCERTAINTY, BUT WE ARE A WORLD POWER”
In addition, the mixed walking relay will debut in Paris, which takes over from the traditional 50 km. In this new discipline, the teams will be made up of a man and a woman, who must complete a distance of 42,195 meters, alternately, in two relays of at least 10 kilometers each. “It has been quite a challenge, because they included it very recently and we have not had the capacity to prepare,” he commented.
“Especially because of that break of about 43 minutes. We have worked with the UCAM to try to get all the possible data, with different tests previously. No country is going to arrive fully prepared with the mixed relay of the Games, but we are going to try to be best prepared as possible and have that competitive advantage,” said Martín.
The one from Llerena admitted that there is “greater uncertainty” in this new test, although “Spain is a world power”, as he has already “demonstrated” with third place in the World Team Championship in Turkey and where he formed a team with Laura García. “In the Games we will be the same rivals, so everything indicates that the medal may be even more feasible,” he predicted, after a “conservative” race by the Spanish.
But this mixed relay ends with the 35 km walk at the Paris Games, in a decision that is not shared by the athletes due to forms. “It is not that we do not agree with the change in distance, but with the way in which they have proceeded. Last year around this time we were talking about the fact that the march was not going to be in 2028 and after a tireless fight throughout the year we managed to defend that we are going to be there. And when they opted for this mixed relay less than a year from Paris, there was no way or time,” he criticized.
“THAT THERE ARE POSITIVE IN DOPING IS BAD NEWS, BUT ALSO GOOD”
Finally, Martín assessed the current situation of doping in Spanish athletics, after the positive cases of Mohamed Katir and Ouassim Oumaiz. The Extremaduran was one of the 78 Spanish athletes who this year expressed his “most firm and absolute rejection of the latest actions” of CELAD and his strong criticism of the fact that it had not acted “with rectitude and transparency”, demanding that the Government take “necessary measures”. and urgent”.
Thus, Martín regretted that the National Anti-Doping Agency has not been functioning properly for “years,” although he applauded that “now it seems” that it is working. “A few years ago there were no positive cases in high-level Spanish athletics. And now it seems that they are coming out. What’s happening? That before they didn’t do dope and now they do? Now it seems that CELAD is working and other positive cases are appearing. It’s bad news, but it’s also good,” he reflected.
“In athletics there are going to be more cases of doping than, for example, with all my respect, in a sport like golf. It is logical. This reduces our credibility, of course. Now, we cannot eradicate doping, it is utopian to think that “We are going to eradicate it one hundred percent. Just as it is to think that we are going to eradicate the fact that someone steals or someone kills. It may be minimized, but it will not disappear,” he said, resigned.
The Extremaduran athlete defended that he cannot change what people may think of him. “For example, I come from the World Cup in Budapest and there will be someone who says ‘My God, how will it go…’,” he commented. “But what I can demonstrate is to try for greater transparency. It’s sad, it affects athletics more, but in the end athletics, cycling, we are sports where doping is unfortunately going to be more prevalent than in others,” he concluded.