The stage in Osijek (Croatia) of the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup, which starts this Thursday (8), marks the return of Arthur Zanetti to international competitions almost a year after winning the Pan American Championship, in Rio de Janeiro. At the age of 35, the Olympic rings champion at the London Games (Great Britain), in 2012, and silver at the Rio de Janeiro Games, in 2016, knows that, at this point in his career, precision is not limited to movements on the apparatus, but it also involves choosing well what to dispute. “We have to be very strategic. Generally, the competitions are all in Europe, this is very tiring. It doesn’t come cheap, the ticket price is expensive, it’s not feasible to go to all stages of the World Cup. If even a younger athlete feels it, the older one feels it more”, said the gymnast, who is living the fourth and last Olympic cycle of his career. “Sometimes the mind wants to do [o movimento], but the body ends up not corresponding. It’s 16 years in high intensity, that weighs a lot. It weighs on the body, it weighs on the head, it weighs age. I’m doing my best in training, to get to the competition and have a good race. We want results, but there are many steps to the medal. I am in this step by step”, he amended. The event in Croatia will serve as a thermometer for Zanetti in preparation for the main tournament of the year: the World Cup in Antwerp (Belgium), between September 30th and October 8th. The competition will be Brazil’s chance to qualify the men’s and women’s teams for the Olympics in Paris (France). The teams have to be among the nine best of their respective genres, not counting those that were guaranteed in the Games in the previous edition of the championship, which was played in Liverpool (Great Britain) and in which the Brazilian did not participate because he was sick. If the teams do not qualify, the way will be to seek a place, also via the World Cup, by performance in the general individual (eight places in the men’s and 14 in the women’s) or in disputes by apparatus (the best athlete of each equipment is guaranteed in Paris). In 2024, the opportunities to go to the Games will include the stages of the World Cup and the continental tournaments. “Brazil wants to have a complete team [cinco ginastas] at the Games, as we have been doing since 2016. We have a base of which athletes [rivais] will be at the Olympics. So, competing internationally is important for us to see what needs to be improved, to go back to the gym, work on the mistake and make a perfect series”, commented Zanetti. Future gymnast In addition to being the last, the Paris cycle is special for being the first that the gymnast from São Caetano do Sul (SP) shares training with his father since the beginning. The son, Liam, was born in September 2020, during the journey towards the Tokyo Games (Japan), which took place the following year. The man from São Paulo took one of his little clothes to the Japanese capital and couldn’t contain his emotion when talking about how he missed his baby boy, who was 11 months old at the time. Spending more time with his son also influenced Zanetti’s decision to end his career in 2024, but that doesn’t mean he will be away from the sport, precisely because of Liam. The boy, now two years and nine months old, became a fever on his father’s social networks when he reproduced some gymnastic movements, always accompanied by his family. Parents created an Instagram profile to record the boy’s adventures, which has almost 170,000 subscribers. “We post what he likes to do there. When he takes something, we start recording, a surprise can come out. I believe it helped a lot of other fathers and mothers to get their children into sports, to develop their child’s motor skills”, highlighted Zanetti. “Liam is on that path. He swims, did judo, rides a bike, but what he likes most is gymnastics, perhaps because of the example we set for him, training every day, showing videos. Let’s see, I’ll let him choose”, concluded the Olympic champion.
Agência Brasil
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