MADRID, 6 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The judoka Marta Arce is clear that “of course” she thinks about competing in Paris 2024, a Paralympic Games in which she wants to “get a medal”, an objective that she already achieved in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012 and for which she will give “everything”, always “enjoying the process”.
“It’s amazing to represent Spain in a Games. It’s the culmination of four years of work, all the competitions are important, but my goal is always to get to this event and it’s lived with a lot of emotion. It’s one of the most important moments of my life”, he stated in an interview with Europa Press, after the presentation of the ‘Paralympic Relay’ program by the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE) and the Community of Madrid.
The Valladolid, 45 years old and visually impaired, is one of the benchmarks of national judo, with four Paralympic Games behind her. After winning two silvers in 2004 and 2008, and a bronze in 2012, she decided to retire, but returned to compete in Tokyo so that the female representation would not be lost. In the Japanese capital, she touched bronze in what was to be her final farewell, which again became only a ‘see you later.
And of all these successes in the Games, the one achieved in London 2012, after having been the mother of her first child, she remembers with “particular enthusiasm” and as “one of the best moments” of her extensive sports career. And it is that the athlete “at first suffered with the results.” “When she was second, she had a ‘tantrum,'” she confessed, while she “now she” enjoys “every training session, being able to be there, the whole process.”
“Then, the results will come or not. You have to be prepared, things can be the way we want or not. In combat sports, where so many things are involved, it is difficult to manage. The obsession with medals and results comes to be a bit harmful. Above all, because you don’t enjoy day to day, you are so focused on getting that result that if it doesn’t come, it seems that everything you’ve done has been for nothing. And instead of valuing the whole process , growth and improvement throughout an Olympic cycle, you don’t see it for what it is, which is always moving forward,” he explained.
For this reason, with his motivation and hunger intact, Arce wants to write another chapter in his career, with the Paralympic Games in Paris as the next big goal, despite the fact that he had ended his sports career after the event in the Japanese capital.
“Of course I think about going to Paris. I go day by day, competition by competition, to get to the Games. It is not written, because it is not easy, but I will try. I want to get a medal, but I know that it does not depend on me , that’s why I will give it my all, also enjoying the process,” Arce advanced.
With her maturity and seniority in elite sport, the judoka celebrated that projects such as the ‘Paralympic Relay’ help foster a “quarry” that her discipline does not currently enjoy. “With these types of programs, many boys and girls can know that they have that talent to begin with. Not only for those who can have a successful future, maybe it’s just something recreational,” she said.
“The question is that they have the opportunity, right now people with disabilities do not have that opportunity to access sport. You cannot get an elite athlete if they cannot even access grassroots sports. You have to start at the base to be able to reach the elite, and of all the people who start, there will be a few who will decide to take that course. But for that you have to have a base from which to pull”, he claimed.
In the specific case of judo, Arce celebrated having “many resources”, even more than when she started in this sport, although she regretted that there are no judokas “for that generational relief”. “And for that you have to invest, so that blind boys and girls know that they can do judo, that it is very beautiful, very beneficial and that they can like it. That is when athletes begin to be built,” she concluded.
