Chapado: “In Paris I don’t see any power with a higher level than us in transfer”

Raul Chapadopresident of the RFEA and recently elected vice president of World Athletics, highly appreciated the performance of its athletes at the World Cup in Budapestwhere 5 medals (four gold and one silver) placed Spain as the third country in the medal table, behind only the United States and Canada.

“I am very pleased with the competitiveness shown by the team. The majority of athletes have times that are around their personal bests”, said the president.

“We are in a moment of highly competitive athletics where the great powers are left empty handed or achieve few results.”, he declared, referring to countries such as Germany, which did not add any medals or France, which was below its usual performance.

“It’s great to be third in the medal table, but I’d rather look at the points classification”, Chapado is qualified to assess the performance of his athletes. Spain is seventh in position with a total of 55 points, a classification that values ​​the results of other athletes who have secured a place as finalists and that is more realistic to the level that the country occupies in the world. It’s hard to repeat results like this, but I’m sure that with the athletes who didn’t come here (Peleteiro, Asier, Mariano, Jordan, Ureña…) a more powerful team can be made”, he said while looking at the games in Paris with optimism.

Sebastian Coe has hinted at the possibility of marching being dropped from the world calendar and the Olympic Games, a decision that would end Spain’s hopes of medaling in its most discipline. When asked how the march was saved, Chapado assured that “no country is more interested than us in saving the march,” he said.

“We should give more visibility to this specialty. Budapest has been greatwith a competition setting in the Plaza de los Héroes that is very good and next year in Paris will be even better”, he assessed this discipline as successful for his interests.

“Next year in Paris 2024 I don’t see any power that can have a higher level than us or a team as complete as ours”, he affirmed strongly about the options of the Spanish march to get a medal after the golds obtained by Álvaro Martín and María Pérez and the fifth place of Cristina Montesinos.

MEDAL TABLE

1 United States 29 (12|8|9)
2 Canada 6 (4|2|0)
3 Spain 5 (4|1|0)
4 Jamaican 12 (3|5|4)
5 Kenya 10 (3|3|4)
6 Ethiopia 9 (2|4|3)
7 Great Britain 10 (2|3|5)
8 Netherlands 5 (2|1|2)
9 Norway 4 (2|1|1)
10 Sweden 3 (2|1|0)
11 Uganda 2 (2|0|0)
12 Australia 6 (1|2|3)
13 Italy 4 (1|2|1)
14 Ukraine 2 (1|1|0)
15 Greece 2 (1|0|1)