The man from Bilbao, one of the best in the world in KL2 kayaking, is counting the hours to return to the Plentzia estuary and continue preparing for the Tokyo Games, his great challenge.
Jesús Ortiz / dxtadaptado.com
When the state of alarm was decreed for the coronavirus pandemic, Higinio Rivero was caught concentrated in the High Performance Center of La Cartuja (Seville). The next day he changed his strokes in the calm waters of the Guadalquivir River for the green landscape that surrounds his mother’s hamlet in Munguía (Vizcaya). Count the days to slide on the water again and regain sensations with the kayak, the boat with which he obtained the ticket for the Paralympic Games in Tokyo, his great challenge. The Bilbao man never loses his smile or optimism.
The Bilbao paddler in his mother’s farmhouse in Munguía.
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“I have been confined for almost two months and I am doing quite well, I feel completely free, I take it as a vacation. It is true that at home I have a garden area and I can feel the wind on my face. Being in this isolated situation is a luxury for me if I compare it to a few years ago when I had the accident ”, he asserts. You know what it is to go against the current, life gave him a setback in 2013 after suffering a spinal injury after falling from 15 meters high while climbing in the Cantabrian Mountains.
“I was hospitalized for three months and bedridden in a horizontal position, without moving, I couldn’t even raise the backrest to watch television because the hip bones had to be welded. Also, after a year I spent no more than 20 minutes sitting in the chair, had to be lying down and only went out to go to hospital rehabilitation. I am already an expert in confinement ”, laughs the Spanish paddler, ranked among the best in the world in KL2 200 meters.
Between the garage and the home garden, he chisels his muscles with gym exercises and simulating strokes on the ergometer row provided by the Spanish Paralympic Committee and on the ergometer kayak sent by the Spanish Canoeing Federation. “They help me to have a good physical preparation, although they are quite harmful. I keep the form well, but in my sport, technique is very important and no matter how strong you are, if you can’t train it it is useless. I really want to regain my touch with the water and the sensations with the kayak ”, he emphasizes.
For the moment he has not stepped on the street, but he hopes to return in the next few hours to the Plentzia estuary, in Barrika, his training place when he is not in concentration in Seville, Galicia or Asturias. Rivero is at the expense of receiving a document that certifies him as an athlete of national interest to train at any time of the day, without time limits and without movement restrictions in his province. “I have the sheet of water in another municipality, it’s 15 minutes away, but I still can’t go. I take it easy, I don’t set deadlines so that I don’t feel anxious or frustrated, ”adds the Bilbao native.
Higinio Rivero training on the ergometer.
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What does concern him is the uncertainty of whether or not there will be competitions this year: “I love training, but when you are looking for high performance, what you want is to compete. I am pushing my body to a limit without having close goals, there is nothing planned. There are rumors that a World Cup may be held in September or October, but information varies from one day to the next. I continue training as if the season continues, I go with that mentality. In fact, from May 21 to 25, the World Cup was scheduled and with the ergometer I will pretend to be playing it ”.
With the passport for Tokyo 2021 in his pocket, the Basque athlete confesses that he is “in a privileged situation, not many have a guaranteed place. The postponement of the Games is good for me, it gives me more time to adapt, prepare better and arrive with more experience. The illusion of playing my first Games is still intact, I fulfilled the objective of qualifying and the next challenge is to get a medal ”, he adds.
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