MADRID, 3 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish athlete Adel Mechaal’s main objective in the European Indoor Track in Istanbul that started this Thursday and where he will debut this Saturday, is to “win a medal” in the 3,000-meter event and “hunt down” the great favourite, the Norwegian Jacob Ingebrigtsen , to achieve “excellence” in a championship that he attends with “a very big responsibility” for his task of engaging more people in a national athletics that “has grown a lot”
“Wearing the national team jersey is a great incentive, you have a great responsibility, because of the medals and because there are many children watching you. It’s like the philosophy of Michael Jordan, who always gave one hundred percent, because it was the last one anyway time they see you. Perhaps you are to blame for a child wanting to run or enroll in an athletics school, that is my greatest incentive to compete, be an example and motivate people,” Mechaal said in an interview with Europa Press.
The Moroccan-born athlete has been competing for Spain for more than a decade, since he debuted in an international event in 2012. Istanbul, now his “home” for being the country of his wife Emine, also an athlete and finalist in this European Championship in the 3,000m , will be his fourth participation in a European Indoor Track, after making a sixth place in Prague 2015, winning gold in Belgrade 2017 and hanging bronze in Torun 2021.
Now he arrives “in great shape” at the indoor event and is clear that “the rival to beat is Jacob Ingebrigtsen.” “He is maybe 1,500 higher, but he has been sick and we don’t know how he will be. I really want to win a medal and hunt down Jacob, it won’t be easy, but I’m going to try,” he said.
The Norwegian is the current continental champion on the indoor track in 1,500 and 3,000 meters, in an event in which he also won gold in the 3,000 in Glasgow 2019, when he also won silver in the ‘milqui’. In addition, he is an Olympic champion in that distance and world gold in 5,000 meters, with a record of 15 medals at just 22 years old.
“It would be foolish not to say that Jacob is one of the greatest athletes in world athletics and he is currently the best, at a European level he is the best in history. He has been with a virus, he has not given the best impression in Lievin (France) , he has only run half a second faster than me in Birmingham and he will arrive tired because he will come from running the 1,500. All this works in my favor, to put the glove on him”, he repeated convinced of his options.
Thus, for Mechaal, who has just won the Spanish record of 1,500 meters indoors in the last round of the World Athletics Indoor Tour in Birmingham with a time of 3:33.28, signs it as a “good performance” to be on the podium. “It’s what I’ve worked for the last four months, winning a medal is always important,” he said.
“Not being there would not be a disappointment, but it would mean that I have not been able to capture all the hard work of the last months in Sierra Nevada, with snow, cold, rain. The podium would be a great result and excellence, beating Jacob”, he stressed, with the Norwegian between his eyebrows.
At 32, he is one of the most important figures in Spanish athletics, with a lot of weight thanks to his seniority and experience in major events. And she continues to stay motivated, setting goals “year by year”. “In the end, I’m lucky to be an athlete who doesn’t always win, I’m not afraid of defeat either, that’s why I sign up for all the ‘bombing'”, he joked, also appealing to “optimism” and leaving aside the “fear of going wrong” the goal.
“Winning a medal is complicated, in the European Championship we will have 24 athletes and only three of them will return home with a medal. The most difficult part is when you have already won a medal and you have to return to the next championship to win it again. That psychological pressure is very hard, I finished fourth in the World Cup in London (2017) and the next (Doha, 2019) I stayed in the first round due to a stumble with 300 meters to go, and that is devastating on an emotional level”, he recounted about the obsession with the success.
A commitment that can end up “burning” athletes due to the “great feeling of failure”, which “is very difficult to manage”. “It generates a lot of anxiety, everyone sees it and criticizes you on social networks, and it affects you emotionally. I am the first person interested in winning a medal,” he explained.
“Spanish athletics has grown a lot, they don’t stop breaking Spanish records. In addition, in recent years the CSD has given a lot of money to the RFEA, and we must not forget that Spain’s handicap is its economy. We are not Norway or Germany, they have competed with an economic ‘doping’ and facilities. Until recently there was not a public track in Madrid, so I think that the RFEA has done a very important job, with many new tracks”, highlighted the long-distance runner.
Mechaal highlighted the respect in the rivals that the Spanish have generated in the big events. “Now they say: ‘Be careful with this one who is Spanish’. Jordi Llopart said in 1980 that he would win a medal and Javier Moracho told me that they told him that the Spaniards were only going to participate. Now the mentality has changed, now they have no better preparation than We can fight them one on one,” he celebrated.
Finally, he valued the absences of Asier Martínez, Mohamed Katir, Mariano García and Maribel Pérez, among others. “Asier’s has done a lot of damage, because it was last minute. The absences of Katir, Mariano García and Mario García Romo have done damage in the sense that they had generated a lot of expectation and excitement among the fans. They are not guilty, they have made their decisions, but those of us who are going will give everything so that we don’t miss them,” he settled.
