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Esteve and Vila looking forward to their thrilling international events

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Esteve and Vila looking forward to their thrilling international events

The national cross-country skiing team has a tough but motivating schedule ahead of it. After a scarce month of competitions this January, the World Championships are on the horizon for February. Carola Vila will be competing in the Under-23 Championship in Vuokatti (Finland), while Irineu Esteve is set to attend the World Championships in Oberstdorf […]

The national cross-country skiing team has a tough but motivating schedule ahead of it. After a scarce month of competitions this January, the World Championships are on the horizon for February. Carola Vila will be competing in the Under-23 Championship in Vuokatti (Finland), while Irineu Esteve is set to attend the World Championships in Oberstdorf (Germany).

A virtual press conference was held today with the two cross-country skiers, their coach Joan Erola, and Josep M. Cabanes, Andbank’s deputy general manager, who highlighted that the two Andorran athletes are “well-established young talents”, particularly after their “excellent performances” in recent races.

In this regard, Erola explained that the team’s two cross-country skiers are in La Rabassa, where they’ve been training, and that they’ll be there over the coming days “in the very best conditions” at the High-Altitude Training Shelter in the Andorran resort of Naturlandia.

Vila, the first to compete

The first to enter into competition will be Vila, who’ll take part in the 10 km skate in the under-23 World Championships. This will be held on 12th February. The Andorran will set off for Finland next Monday. After the under-23 race, the team managers have Vila scheduled for a European Cup on 20th-21st February in Oberwiesenthal (Germany), where the Junior and Under-23 World Championships were held last year.

Irineu, training at home

As for Irineu Esteve, for the time being he’ll continue intensely training at home at the REA for an additional few days. He’ll then travel to the Czech Republic to compete in a World Cup race in Nove Mesto, before travelling to Germany for the World Championships. At the World Championship in Oberstdorf he’ll take part in the skiathlon on the 27th, the 15 km skate on the 3rd and the 50 km classic marathon on the 7th.

Irineu Esteve, cross-country skier: “We have the World Championships, but before them I have the World Cup in Nove Mesto. We’ll try to go there as well-prepared as possible and place among the very best. On Monday we begin a busy week, then I have the World Cup in Nove Mesto and I’ll try to do well in all the three World Championship races”.

“In the top 10? I think it’s going a bit far to say that, because all the factors would have to turn out well. We set ourselves ambitious goals, but the best way of being satisfied is to know that we’ve given everything we got”.

Carola Vila, cross-country skier: “I think we’ve trained well, we have this goal of the under-23 World Cup, which is the main objective for the season. We didn’t do much in January, but let’s see if we can achieve some good results. In any case, we’ve trained by doing series and intervals so as not to lose our racing form, and I also took part in the French Cup a few weeks ago where I had a really good feeling. It’s difficult to set a goal for the under-23 World Cup, because we don’t really know who’ll be there, but I think that if I have a good race, a top 20 is possible”.