Tokyo 2021: Feet on the ground, your head in the clouds, from Roxana Bubba to Ray Zapata | Olympic Games 2021

The silence of the gymnastics room. Dry muscle strikes against wood. Strong footsteps on the crossbar. bumps, tripping; Whispers resound like booming voices.

And on the earth the eyelids of the sun are yellow Roxana Buba And the creaking of her right knee, three operations on the anterior cruciate ligament and two on the meniscus, she is 24 years old, and in her first and last games because she has been asking for a pass since she was young, everyone thought that gymnast Alcorcón would reach the final in the silent room, already devoid of the American thigh Who left soldiers behind their stars (the Spanish team competed in the fourth division, penultimate), meditating on his grief, his right leg, reinforced with thighs, knee pads, and ankles, top to bottom, and the score that leaves them far from any hope on earth, the device I envisioned He hopes to win a medal. ‘I came with my stuffed feet, but I don’t want that to be an apology,’ says Bubba, who is stronger than his knee, with a spinning double-jump on the rack, an exercise whose preparation involves tormenting various joints hours a day, and with a wonderful flight in those non Equal, the device of senior professionals, most hated before Simon Biles, This relaxes her. He thought he’d end up booking for the full competition on Thursday, but reality improves his hope: He finished 21st, out of 24, and will have to continue torturing his knee the day the world awaits the peak of the Texas superstar. “Some small flaws pushed me to the floor.”

The young Spanish team, making its Olympic debut, Boba, Alba Petescu, Marina Gonzalez and Laura Pechdego, finished 12th and is optimistic. “After we qualified for the last World Cup,” they agree, Tokyo 2020 It’s one step, one point and you follow it towards Paris 24.

On the raised sidewalks, Saturday night’s joy still resonates Ray Zapata That in his second matches, at age 28, and four after breaking his Achilles tendon, he qualified for the final round. The boy from Lanzarote, is not so young anymore, because even a father, he follows in the footsteps of his hero Jervey DeVere, Double Olympic champion La Mina, who always reminds him of Firestone ad, control, ray, control and uncontrolled power is a disaster, and you have to overcome it. He got, for the first time, more than 15 points, and although he is fourth in the qualifiers, he already has a medal, moreover, Zapata No. 2 was saved for the final – a double somersault on the plank with a turn and a half–, the element The new one you have already named. Gymnastics set up by Fernando Siscar, who will count against him with little time he was able to on the track in Tokyo, says a new model that other countries have installed in their gyms for their athletes to adapt, but not Spain, which has only been able to send men to Switzerland for a few days to test it. And the postponement prays that he does not remain fourth on Sunday 1 in the final as he was on the ground in Athens, and it was as if a knife was stuck in his heart.

His qualification mitigates the disappointment of the men’s team, who finished 12th in a ranking in which the top three (Japan, China and Russia) are separated by a third of a point, too close together, to make it into the final. . , which was the target. Falling out of the bars of Nestorabad, specifically team leader, The most professional of all time, he weighed down a very young team with newcomer Joel Plata, 23 holding his first in the full final of the competition, and Nicholas Meyer, the youngest (20) and third reserve on the floor. Their games will be Paris 24, which is very close indeed.

And all over the world the sound of the bomba can still be heard! From the previous king’s night Kohei Uchimura, Whoever falls on his butt – his left hand has not reached the crossbar after a complex and acrobatic course in the air – and in such a dishonest way leaves the games forever, in his country, at the age of 32, he is the best gymnast. In history, a double Olympic champion for the full competition (London 12 and Rio 16, silver in Beijing 08), 161 cm of strength than in his last competitive year, a year late due to the epidemic, with a crushing back, trying to hold the bar, the only machine that managed From sneaking off, to say goodbye It should. But the tape betrays him. He, perplexed, does. “This has never happened to me,” he says. Getting here was complicated. He says goodbye in silence, with no one around to cry. Young 19-year-old Daiki Hashimoto, first in the qualifiers, promises to hold the bar tight in his honor.

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