MADRID, 7 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Spanish triathlete Javier Gómez Noya celebrates accumulating a professional career of almost 20 years that takes away “stress” and “pressure”, although he acknowledges that elite sport “tires” because it is “very intense trying to be the best in the world at something” , although he continues “with desire and enthusiasm” to do what he likes, although he admits that participating in the 2024 Paris Olympics is not something that motivates him “too much”.

“Elite sport is tiring, when you try to be the best in the world at something, it’s very intense, it’s full dedication, your whole life revolves around that. You have to know how to find a balance and surround yourself with the right people and become questions to yourself, if you do it routinely, if you really like it”, Gómez Noya pointed out about high competition in an interview with Europa Press.

In his case, after being a five-time world champion, a silver medalist at the London Games and a four-time European champion, he stressed that triathlon is what he likes to do. “I have better days and worse days, but at the moment I enjoy what I do, I still feel competitive and I know that one day I will leave it and nothing happens,” he said.

“High-competition sport may not be too healthy. I always say that it is much healthier than the one who leads a messy life and goes out every weekend. Perhaps the ideal would be to do sport with less intensity, but it is our profession. We also take care of many more details than normal people. It is clear that life is better than life when going out and partying”, commented the Galician regarding his lifestyle, which “would not vary too much” if he retired.

However, despite the fatigue and frustration that can appear, at times, in such a long race, the positive point is that “it takes away stress”. “If I manage to win races and big goals, great, and if not, I’ll be happy with the career I have,” he argued. “I have less pressure than ten years ago, when you go to the Games for the first time and want to win a medal. Now I do it because I want to, I still feel like it and I’m still eager and excited”, he celebrated.

“Experience is a degree when it comes to knowing yourself, being more efficient, knowing how to face competitions. That’s the positive part, but the negative is that the body is better at 25 than at 40, but you can’t have everything,” he joked.

Gómez Noya got off to a good start at the start of the 2022 season, with an important victory at the Ironman 70.3 in Pucón (Chile), a victory that laid the foundations for a good preparation with the Ironman World Championship in Kona (Hawaii) on the horizon. .

However, COVID-19 crossed his path in April, one day before traveling to St. George (Utah), a World Championship event. “The timing was quite inopportune, you’ve already done the preparation as planned, you haven’t skipped a day, and it catches you right before. It’s a bit more frustrating,” she explained.

“It was harder mentally, especially later. Because when you have already overcome the disease and you test negative, you notice that there is still something that is not right, you do not feel like yourself and you do not know if it will be a week or ten months, that uncertainty it’s difficult to manage mentally,” he said about the disease and his subsequent recovery.

This misfortune at the key moment, reminiscent of his broken arm weeks before Rio 2026, led him to make the decision not to compete in the Ironman World Championship in Kona (Hawaii), his main goal for this season. “Of course it hurts, but there are other interesting tests that also motivate me. If you told me that there is only Kona and it is either Kona or nothing, it would have been harder. But there is 70.3, other PTO tests, with other Ironman that I can do, that lesser evil is made up a little,” he resigned himself.

Finally, Gómez Noya, Olympic silver in London 2012, considered the Games chapter “quite closed”. “It is difficult to leave the Olympic distance, because it is where you feel comfortable, it is what you dominate. But I no longer had that illusion, thinking about other Games is not something that motivates me excessively, I have already been to many. Now it motivates me to do long distance,” he said.