2023-11-22 00:45:49
Competitiveness, ambition and constant desire to improve. These can be three traits that define a top-level athlete like Juan del Campo. The Bilbao native, who at 29 years old has become one of the great references of alpine skiing in this country, made his debut last weekend in another edition of the World Cup, emerging with a brilliant twenty-fourth place in Gurgl, Austria. It was his second personal best result in a World Cup after twenty-second achieved last season. Something that seemed to be able to exceed even his own expectations. However, his insatiable nature does not allow him to settle. «I am happy, but not satisfied. I didn’t do the best descents I could have done. My average level in training was much higher than in the race, we feel that we have a significant margin for improvement,” he told EL CORREO.
Since he was little he was already a born competitor. In fact, it can be said that he soon stopped seeing skiing as a normal recreational activity. “I was in the typical ski lesson in which the children all go in single file and I couldn’t help but be overtaking all the time, so they recommended that I compete,” he points out. This is how a very successful career began to take shape, which has seen him win a national championship, participate in the World Cups and even the Olympic Games. Now he is completely focused on the World Cup, which has started with very good feelings and he has experienced a series of changes and progress that make him feel right now in “the best moment of my career,” he says.
He has changed his material and has found his trusted person in Alberto Arioli, who has made him take a big step forward. «We have tried to improve the technique, there have been many extra hours of analysis and work, training while the rest were on vacation. It has been very hard, but the reality is that we have seen a very important progression. I present this season with an improvement at a technical and tactical level, with more mental maturity, at my best physical level and, above all, with a very great confidence in what I am doing and in my team. Furthermore, he highlights that they have grown from scratch due to the fact that they do not have references and now the experience makes them a much more complete team. They are all positive stimuli.
Therefore, his objective is in line with his good moment and the ambition that characterizes him: «Reach the finals of the World Cup, that is, be among the 25 best at the end of the year. I want to reach the last race within those 25 and that means being on a recurring basis not only in the thirties, but between fifteen or ten and achieving good results,” he indicates. Another goal he sets for himself is “to get a starting number sooner and be among the top thirty or twenty to be able to compete in better track conditions, which is very influential for us,” he adds. There is nothing else inside his mind but to achieve it. Afterwards, he will have to think about the World Cups and the Olympic Games, which “you always have in mind, but we have many objectives in between, it’s time to climb little by little, without haste, but without pause,” he says.
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