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Tariku Novales and the Valencia marathon prepared between Guadalajara and Ethiopia

2022-12-07T04:28:11.881Z


The Galician athlete lost the Blume residence scholarship, went to train in Ethiopia, where his roots are, and live in Guadalajara with the jumpers Jordan Díaz and Héctor Santos


Tariku Novales crosses the finish line of the Valencia marathon.Kai FORSTERLING (EFE)

In August Tariku Novales made two decisions that, four months later and a marathon, he believes have changed his life.

When the Spanish athletics federation informed him that due to lack of results he had lost the right to live on a scholarship at the Blume residence, Novales, 24, spoke with his bosom friend, the long jumper Héctor Santos, who went to live to Guadalajara when he also left La Blume.

There he trains with Iván Pedroso and shares a flat with Jordan Díaz, the triple jump national record holder.

Santos told her that they were just moving to a bigger house, too expensive for two, but that it would be great for three.

"I did the math and saw that it was the best," says Novales, two days after running the Valencia marathon in 2h 7m 18s, the best Spaniard in the race, ahead of the national record holder, Ayad Lamdassen, the minimum for the World Cup. Budapest in your pocket, the result, the time,

that convinces him that he is taking good steps towards maturity.

"We get along really good.

It was a very wise decision.

She needed a change of scenery."

Coexistence in what could be considered the home of champions may be one of the keys to his Valencia marathon, but perhaps more important was the second decision he made in August, when he took a plane and went to Ethiopia for a few months. an even more radical change of scenery.

"He had already gone to Ethiopia other times, but never to train for so long, and the trip was not only to train, but to rediscover his roots and the roots of what he likes the most, which is running," says Juan del Campo, his coach in Madrid since Novales, adopted by a Galician family when he was a child, arrived from Galicia to the capital at the age of 18, a great youth talent.

"Having to leave the Blume had made him reflect, 'if I only like this, if I only like to run, I have to take a turn, I have to put my batteries together."

“He settled in Addis Ababa and every day he took a bus to go train in the outskirts, and he did extremely hard training at 2,700m altitude, weeks of 230 kilometers, runs of 25-30 kilometers at 312m, trail running outings for rough roads…”, says Nacho Barranco, athlete and journalist, and friend.

"And he was thinking of extending it further, but he feared that he had injured the head of the femur and returned to Spain at the end of November to be treated by the physiotherapist."

Ángel Basas, the federation's physiotherapist, told him that he had nothing broken, but he did have a good edema, and gave him only a 20% chance of being able to run the marathon.

“He was lame, he ran the marathon lame, and how he ran it,” Del Campo says.

“He showed his great personality.

He is brave, daring, when he runs his blood boils.

He was lame and went out to run the marathon at 3m per kilometer.

It is very easy to say I think I can, I have to do it.

It is not the same to believe it than to do it.

You have to go out and do it.

It's about power, not dreaming."

Thus, in Valencia, the talent of one "born to run" finally flourished, in the expression of Barranco.

From the generation of another great Galician athlete, Adrián Ben, 800m Olympic and world finalist, and Salamanca middle-distance runner Mario García Romo, in 2017 Tariku Novales won the silver medal in the 5,000m junior Europeans.

He was only surpassed by Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Norwegian genius who is already an Olympic champion.

“He has a sporting talent that we caught the first time, as soon as we arrived in Madrid.

A brutal natural talent to run long, for the asphalt, not for the track.

With short distances you can entertain yourself, I told him, but tell me what difference is there between running the 5,000m in 13m 50s or 13m 40s, and you have spent three years to achieve it", says Del Campo, who is only frustrated by Novales, " a very intelligent young man, very imaginative, creative,

with many ideas, with great intellectual facility”, who has not continued studying after finishing high school.

"And we already began to train him to be a long-distance runner, to learn how to drink during the race, how to sleep, nutritional strategies, lose weight..."

Tariku Novales wants to lead the life of an African runner, what he wants is to run, what he likes, and he leads that life, with a good marathon already under his belt, although two days later he still cannot take two steps without crutches, the price Of value.

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Source: elparis

All sports articles on 2022-12-07

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