Athletes gathered on Friday at the Niemeyer center in Aviles ahead of the 2016 ITU Duathlon World Championships to talk about their race preparation.
“I had a great start of the season but I crashed on my bike on the WTS Gold Coast and broke my collarbone, so I was out of the triathlon races for a few weeks. When I was looking at the calendar to see when I could come back to action, the World Champs in Aviles looked like the perfect match. I started my career as a duathlete and then moved to triathlon, so I hadn´t race duathlons since a long time. I’m not going to lye, I’m not in a great form yet, still recovering, but I think I will be competing fine and it will be a great race. I really hope to be on the podium, even though I will have great competitors, especially the good runners, this course is perfect for them.
I come here to Avilés as the defending champion and I am very confident that I can be on the podium again. And because this race is in my home country, Spain, is very special. 2016 has been a tough year for me because of the injuries but I recovered well and now I’m in a great form. I feel very confortable with the circuit, because we can run very fast, even though I miss a cycling circuit a bit harder. But we all had time to prepare for this race so we are all in the same conditions.
I almost feel like an Spaniard now, I’ve been training and competing in Spain for the last three months, and my last five competitions were also here in Spain. My goal for tomorrow is to have the best possible race that I can, and most of all, to enjoy the race. Aviles is a very charming city, and the circuit is amazing. And most of all, I have the feeling, for what I’ve seen this past couple of days here, that we are going to have lots of support from the people, and that’s always a pleasure.
This is one of the circuits I love most, as is super fast and perfect for running, with long straight sections, without turns, and the bike course doesn’t have too many lopps, so for tandems is perfect. Is gong to be a hard race, even though some of my strongest rivals won’t be here as they are trying to classify for Rio, but I will have the pleasure of competing home, and that always brings a little extra from us. Even though our race will be quite early on Saturday, I really would like to encourage the people of Aviles to get our and enjoy triathlon on the streets. Everyone that sees paratriathlon live once wants to repeat.