The day our athletes set foot in the Olympic facilities for the opening of the Paris Games, many of their expectations were fulfilled, since participating in an Olympic event is the dream, almost always unfulfilled, of the thousands and thousands of athletes who dedicate key years of their lives to achieve this goal.
I remember levitating over the grass of the Olympic Stadium at the London 2012 Games, when the members of the Spanish delegation walked behind Pau Gasol, who was carrying our flag. The excitement and expectations were not only ours, but also our families and friends’, who couldn’t take their eyes off the television screen, mesmerized by our presence. Like them, an entire country vibrated for us and with us.
Coping with this avalanche of emotions can be overwhelming.
Despite this, after everything you’ve experienced, you return to your room in the Village and know that you are just one of thousands of athletes who will give their all to achieve Olympic success. The overdose of emotions must be compatible with the mechanical routine of training, repeated thousands of times, and essential to achieve your goal.
The challenges for each athlete are different: in some cases it is to beat a record, in others to win a medal, and in a third option, simply to participate. If your goal is the medal, as was my case in London 2012, you experience the intensity and weariness of a very tough competition, and the greatness of the Games happens around you, almost without experiencing it; at times you connect with it and without wanting to, your eyes fill with tears, experiencing your own particular Stendhal syndrome. You want to return to your mechanical routine and to what you have lived the last four years, but without a doubt that is nothing like anything you have experienced so far, and even less so for athletes in emerging sports, in which the visibility of the Games is a unique opportunity, since you have never before competed in similar conditions.
We mentally prepare ourselves to be able to cope with this grandiose dimension of the Games with exercises in which we visualise everything we are going to encounter; the objective is to be able to manage emotions so that they do not derail the project we have worked on. When a hundredth, a point or a basket decide your future, all the details are essential. Nothing should divert you from your objective. A bad look can distract you, a slip can take you out of the final or diarrhoea can weaken you and make you fall out of the competition.
I remember feeling this fragility as a constant anguish every day I was in the Villa, but at the same time it became a special strength that made us capable of overcoming all obstacles. You feel chosen to be among your idols and to be at the center of something so great. This feeling is, in reality, a thank you to everyone and for everyone who has made it possible to live this dream.
You dream of this moment for years, in my case eight, and I can say that the reality exceeds any expectations you might have had. The greatness of the Games is not found in the facilities and the media hype, but in the titanic work and effort of the athletes who participate, since the Games culminate the work of key years of their lives, in which the aspirations of young people of their age are subordinated to their sporting dreams.
Dreaming is always a risky adventure and the Olympic adventure can change your life. When it comes to brave young people, the respective countries should prepare to reduce the possible damage caused by unfulfilled dreams and prevent those years of almost exclusive work from negatively affecting the future of our brave people.
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