Pablo Villalobos: The sport has suffered more than necessary

We have all been affected by this new era we are facing.
We have changed our work routine, the way we socialize and communicate with our immediate environment, the way we practice sports….
It is clear that technology has made our lives a little easier.

Today we are very happy to be able to chat with an experienced long distance runner, Pablo Villalobos, fifth at the European Athletics Championships 2010 in Barcelona.

With the athlete from Extremadura we have been able to chat about his career in the world of sport, about how this new normality has affected his daily life as an athlete and the kind of solutions that he has been able and will implement as a professional.

In addition, we have also talked about one of the most controversial topics of the news, the organization of the Olympic Games in Japan 2021.

Did the pandemic affect you much in meeting your goals?

During home confinement, yes, it was 50 days without being able to run because I had no treadmill at home.
I could only do some rolling with a bike and general strengthening work. It was one of the longest breaks in my sporting life since I started when I was 10 years old.
I don’t remember many more times that I have gone that long without running.

On the other hand, with the groups of runners, we have been developing strengthening work by videocall to maintain routines and contact for 30-40 minutes.
It was a very interesting experience for everyone.
So on a work level, although in an atypical way, I was able to continue working.

At the moment I run every day and some days I even do double sessions, accumulating between 10-20 hours of moderate physical activity per week to prepare for my sports goals.

I do mostly training with the groups of runners I train.
That would be about 50% of the training.
Also, when I can, I go out once a week in the mountains, since right now I’m goal oriented in mountain races.

In the mornings I work from home, being able to take some time to train first thing in the morning.
While during the afternoons I usually have training sessions with the running groups.

From now on, Do you think it will change the world of sports?
How will it change?

I believe that the sport has suffered more than necessary, and it has not been taken into account that in many cases, it is a practice that promotes health, that can be done outdoors, and following the distance measures.

At the same time, I believe that a large part of the world’s population has received the message it needed to realize how important it is to be healthy, to be active, to take care of oneself for health and to avoid complications such as COVID19.

They have learned to generate healthy routines, both physical and mental, at a time when we have had to restrict our activities, social, leisure, travel, etc…

I believe that sport and the world of physical activity will emerge stronger, although it is clear that some sectors will take some time to recover and return to normality at a cost of companies and temporary employment.

After communicating the first edition of the manual of measures to be used for the Olympic Games in Tokyo in July 2021, there are thousands of unknowns that arise after the management of this great event. Various elite sports federations are keen to attend the Olympic Games in order to save the 2016-2020 season, due to the season with the greatest restrictions on sports activities. How do you see the resumption of preparations for the Olympics? Do you think that TIMP could manage or help in the management of an event like the Olympics??

I think it is positive and necessary, it is clear that it will not be a normal Olympic Games as those that would have been held without the existence of the pandemic, but I am sure that the necessary measures will be taken so that it will not be a focus of the disease in Japan or later when they finish.

TIMP is a very versatile tool that can be an interesting solution for the management of capacity, ticketing, services, etc. An Olympic Games, due to its complexity, would be an opportunity to scale for an app like TIMP.

Do you think technology has become necessary in the new era of sport?

I believe that tools and applications such as TIMP will facilitate many aspects in the field of sport for the management of all kinds of activities: reservations, capacity, services…
They are scalable applications, with a low implementation cost and that allow, in turn, the application of many other extra services to users that facilitate their access to services, their satisfaction and even their loyalty.

Now that we are starting from scratch.
How do you think we could return to normality in the world of sport and major competitions?
Will fans become more selective when it comes to attending an event?

I believe that little by little we will return to normality.
We will have to wait and see in the coming months how the pandemic evolves and how the vaccines are distributed. But I believe that in a while we will notice a certain normality regarding national and international mobility to attend major events.

I also believe that if the highest level competitions are held without public, with certain restrictions or measures on travel, from spring of this 2021 they will take place more and more normally.