 |
| Spain's Gabriel Navarro on his way to winning the men's 5000m gold at the European Athletics Junior Championships in Tallinn. |
Spanish long distance runner Gabriel Navarro had good claims to being the unofficial ‘man of the European Athletics Junior Championships’ after winning both the 5000m and 10000m in hot and humid conditions in the Estonian capital Tallinn just over a week ago.
The 18-year-old Madrid-based runner - he turns 19 on Saturday (6 August) - although he hails from the Castilla La Manca village Motilla del Palacar, was the only man to get two individual gold medals and became only the third man in the history of the Championships to do the 5000m/10000m double.
After his feats in Tallinn, he has now brought the curtain down on his season. “I would have liked to have competed in the Spanish senior championships in Malaga on 6 and 7 August but my coach, Antonio Serrano, said that may be pushing things too far,” said Navarro.
In an interview with the Spanish sports newspaper As last week, Navarro described his experiences en-route to two gold medals.
Q: What were you thinking when you were lapping your fellow competitors one after another in the 10000m?
A: The 10000m is a very long race but, yes, I was shocked, especially when I was beginning to lap those who were also in medal positions. I said to myself: “what’s going on here.”
Q: Great Britain’s Paul Thompson, who was second to you at that stage of the race, fainted on the home straight with just a couple of laps to go. Did you see what was happening?
A: I didn’t know what was happening or where he was but it was very hot.
Q: The digital thermometer read 31 degrees?
A: The humidity was also around 70 or 80 percent. It was hard. My rivals, as they crossed the line, were collapsing to the ground.
Q: Three days later, in 5000m, you won in a totally different fashion: with a sprint in the final metres. How could you run such different races?
A: It’s true, they were totally different. The physios and doctors from the Spanish federation helped me to recover very well and, at the start of the 5000m, I was fully off running. With two laps to go, I decided that a change of pace was necessary, because I was feeling fine. It was risky, but I wanted to do it [his decisive attack] at that time. It was a nice race. I liked it more than the 10000m.
Q: What are your plans now for the future?
A: Well, to reach my limit, but to do extra-ordinary things without doping. I love athletics and it hurts me what we're seeing. It hurts my ears to hear the things I hear that have happened. I’d like to do something that nobody has done before me, but without taking anything. I do not even take vitamins… and look what I got. It’s not that difficult.