“Canoeing regained my enthusiasm, my desire, my competitiveness and all of who I am today”

María Corbera Muñoz (Madrid, November 20, 1991), is one of Spain’s main assets to win a medal at the Paris Olympic Games which is near. Chosen by the COE as the best athlete of 2023, he will participate in canoeing in Paris, specifically in the C1 200 and C2 500 meter events. María Corbera continues to prepare for her first Games and attends Mundo Deportivo

How do you prepare for the Games?

Very good. In fact, it surprises me because people who have experienced this and they are tense moments talk to me and guide me a little bit, but until now, I handle it like any year I compete. Very good.

Come on, play with me, about what?

Yes. I have in my mind that this is the Games, that this is Paris, but I bring it to my field and… like last year the World Championship, like any other season.

I don’t want to pressure him, but he knows that he is a very strong choice for a medal, as is Antía Jácome, his partner in the C2 500 meters….

The statistics, the trajectory during this cycle points to the existence of those options, but as you conveyed to us, we also have that desire, knowing that this is a way to put the icing on the cake in the cycle that this. We know our level, what we can achieve, what we want on D-day at H-hour to give our version. That’s what will carry us and keep us calm when we cross the finish line. It can be anything, medal or not, people are very strong, but we are going for the maximum.

Who are Antía’s main rivals both individually and as a couple?

Individually, we have Cuba, Spain, of course,…We all go hand in hand. There is also Canada and China cannot be denied. As for the team boat, there is Canada, China and Ukraine, which is the last Olympic podium. We want to turn the tables and continue down that path.

These are your first Games, what did the people you talked to explain to you about what the Olympic Games are?

In terms of experience, what the Olympic village is, what the organization is, how they set it up and that, well, they explain it to me as I have seen it on TV, as if it was a tremendous montage, like a movie. , that you are like a famous star. Being there in the village, with other athletes, such a constant feeling of excitement.

Speaking of other athletes, who would you like to meet in that Olympic village?

I want Nadal and Alcaraz to keep up. I don’t know if we will be able to coincide because I don’t know what the competition calendar is. We are not going to Paris until day 3 and then, we are not going to be in the villa, but in a hotel that is close to where we fought, so we will almost never end up in the villa. Yes, we will experience closure, but we will only be in town for a short while. This makes it difficult to match other athletes.

It is at the closing, but not at the opening of the Games…

Yes, it hurts because you want to fully live the experience. It’s like when you go on vacation, you want to be with everyone, from the time you leave the house to the time you return. But hey, we know that the priority, the goal, is the competition. In our case, the migration issue was very painful for us when it came to rest. It is something that you process, accept and understand. We have that role, but we will not miss the closure and we will still live it with more enthusiasm than we did together.

In 2016, you didn’t have fun and quit canoeing…

Yes…In 2016, after 18 years in kayak, competing in World Cups in the highest category, even participating in the pre-Olympic for Rio 2016, that year reached saturation. There was a lot of pressure, a lot of stress… I didn’t know how to ask for help at the time or communicate my emotional state at that moment. That mountain of evil inside grew, of not being comfortable, of having an increasingly worse time when I went into the water and it exploded. I don’t want to know about canoeing, I don’t want to know about paddle, canoe, I don’t want to go near the river. At that moment I needed my time to disconnect, to forget what canoeing is, to do other things that I have not been able to do for 18 years, things that any person, any student does. Simply going to class, taking University exams excites me more than canoeing. Then he gradually regained that desire by giving a hand to the club, to the little ones, training with them. Without any goal, without any plan to follow, I said to myself, I’m going to take this up again and I took it up again with the canoe, which was a success. I regained my enthusiasm, my desire, my competitiveness and everything that I am today.

Going from kayak to canoe is like starting over, right?

Yes Yes. This really motivated me the most, that it was something completely different from what canoeing was because it was something new, starting from scratch. The first two weeks I spent more time splashing than paddling, but that challenged me to accomplish something small, like learning to get from the water to the canoe…Playing I myself whether it works or not. Little by little, I give myself personal challenges and am in game mode. I have no idea how far I will go, but I know that I won’t do anything that I don’t enjoy, that will motivate me and that will motivate me as I do at that moment.

To start from scratch, you’ve come a long way…

Yes, of course, of course. Ultimately, we set limits for ourselves. Every time I met the personal challenges I set for myself, I said to myself, now I want a little more. I thought about that little bit more, like going from a European to a World Cup or in the European I said, I came third, it’s not enough for me, I have to train more because I know I can train better. By polishing those things and being demanding of myself I got to where I am.

You are explaining a complete life lesson to me…

Thanks a lot. Many times we get frustrated because things don’t work for us, you tried and it didn’t work. The fact that it didn’t work out is that I didn’t give up, I focused in a different way and I even psychoanalyzed myself, as it were, what we proposed didn’t work out. , what went wrong, what can we do better? Many times, the secret is to ask the people around you for help. We don’t have all the tools to reach the goal we set for ourselves. By putting together a great team, with people who are experts in these things, they can help us achieve our goal and that’s the way to get there. It became the way, to analyze it, to see what went wrong, how we can do it and above all, not to throw in the towel.

Until recently, the figure of psychologists seemed to be a taboo subject

I see the figure of the psychologist as a main pillar, not only about athletes, but also for our daily life. Many times we don’t see the light because we don’t know how to focus it, we don’t know how to manage it. The typical situation where I haven’t even reached the starting line and I can say that I’m tired, my heart is coming out of my mouth, that I’m tired and I haven’t started to compete. All these are techniques that the psychologist teaches you to learn how to master so that they can be a plus even for your sports performance.

Is it true that during that time you didn’t want to know about canoeing you tried football and rugby?

Yes, very little football, only two training sessions with a team because I got into trouble at University. Yes, I practiced rugby, I liked it, I was good, but it’s true that I found that there was something inside me that knew that this was not the time to hang up the shovel and it always was. I’m going to hurt myself, I’m going to hurt myself,…like I’m not 100%, like me. I liked it, but knew that at that moment I wasn’t giving 100%, I didn’t like it and look, fate has something better in store for this canoeing and now we have seen what it has in store.

What is it about female athletes in this country that has outplayed men in the Games for so long?

We changed the chip, we saw what we can achieve, we don’t have that fear, the concern of what we thought before. Now it’s not that I’m less than anyone, I’m just like everyone else and I’m going to fight. We also had good examples that became a legacy for us and we want to follow in their footsteps. We see the light that can be achieved. I encourage all girls, everyone in general, to fight for what we want, to achieve the goals you set for yourself and there is no science to it.

Is there still a long way to achieve equality between men and women?

There are still many left. Yes, it is true that we are taking baby steps, that not as many doors are closed as before, but there are still many left and we continue to see it today. We want to have complete equality and that we are not inferior to anyone.