MADRID, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Alex Martin, coach of Spain's snowboard cross (SBX) team for the Beijing Olympic Winter Games in February 2022, told Xinhua that although Spain will have a "small" team in Beijing, they have high hopes of coming back home with a medal.
SBX sees six racers compete on a course which tests their skill and at times their ability to keep out of trouble, in a sport where the slightest loss of concentration can send you tumbling.
"Talent, technique and tactics is the formula that we have been using in training with all our athletes in the snowboard cross team in the Royal Spanish Federation of Winter Sports (RFEDI)," Martin told Xinhua.
He highlighted Lucas Eguibar, who is the reigning world champion, and Alvaro Romero, as Spain's two strongest medal hopes, along with Regino Hernandez, who claimed the bronze medal in the PyeongChang Winter Games in 2018.
Martin has a degree in Physical Fitness science and a Master's degree in High Performance and has been coaching for over 20 years. He began working for the Spanish Federation in 2017 and is currently the technical director for snowboard at the RFEDI and responsible for a team, which has achieved a high level of success.
The Spanish team recently returned from China after participating in the test event on the Olympic Games circuit, and experience Martin described as "different and very tiring."
"It was complicated," he explained. "Going to international events at the moment requires a double effort because of the care you have to take and the sanitary controls in place because of the pandemic. Maybe that was the hardest thing for our athletes in their first contact with China."
However, despite the difficulty the coach was content with the experience.
"We learned an important lesson and after this experience, we are now better prepared to show that with a lot of effort, we are able to adapt to a global situation that needs both a physical and a mental effort," he concluded, adding that events such as the Winter Olympics should act as a motivation for everyone to work together to try to end the pandemic. Enditem