translated from Spanish: Rodrigo Rojas, a quarantined national karateca: “I was bored having to be hitting the stove”

National karateca Rodrigo Rojas has never spent so much time in Chile since he was an athlete. It is that the pandemic canceled all world events, including the Olympic Games, the main objective of the also kinesiologist. “I’m in feeling like I’m losing what it took me so hard to achieve: an optimal and good international level,” he says.
From Peñalolén, Rojas makes a stop in his routine to answer some questions. “I’m quarantined. So far we’re still locked up. Let’s hope it happens to Phase 2 soon,” he says to the phone.
The karatek, the world champion in Ireland in 2017 and Pan-American medalist, returned to training almost two weeks ago at the Olympic Training Center in Auñoa. Rodrigo was excited. He took his karategi (karate dress) the day before and left him ready to get up, take the bag and go to training early.
‘They had told everyone it was going to be a quieter class but I still thought we were going to train, so I went in the suit and everyone stared at me. ‘ What am I doing dressed like that?’ they told me. It was just a technical talk, ten minutes of elongation and for the house. Ha, ha, ha, ha!” laughs Rojas.
Currently it’s six karatecas training. Rojas goes every five days. “We’re the ones with a chance to qualify for the Olympics,” he says. He regrets that before there were almost 20 training together every day. “They were very supportive. Now we have to be more than two meters away each, with mask, disinfect ourselves completely, washing our hands… being a contact sport with all this is super hard to deal with,” he explains.

Crisis and a stove

But that was after a difficult time locked up and away from karate. Late last year, Rojas cut off the ligaments of one of his knees, operated and in record time, only two months, was already competing again. That much-made effort was stalled by the coronavirus pandemic.
“I suffered a kind of existential crisis in which I stopped training for about two weeks. I was super motivated to train before and I got that frustration that I was going to lose everything I had already advanced,” he confesses. “We were supposed to be out all this year… we had Olympic Games and a world championship at the end of the year,” he says.
But quarantine led to Rojas facing a rival who could only withstand the strong blows of the karateca: his stove. “I was bored having to be hitting the stove. I was in my yard also training… but the truth is that hitting the stove, which hit him so much and didn’t answer me, bored me. It was a little difficult that moment,” he confesses.
For the same reason, it thanks the Ministry of Sport for its management so that they could return to training.
“We are few and the truth is that since we have no more competition this year or maybe one at the end of the year (in Moscow), we start a rather tedious and boring period for the competitor,” he proposes.

Original source in Spanish