The student of 3rd year of Preschool Education has achieved national gold, which automatically classifies her for the European championship. In her opinion, “turning effort into a habit” is the key to her success.
Andrea Romero Escandell (20/04/2000) keeps achieving medals in 2022. On 13 November, the athlete won gold at the Spanish Championship of Clubs, fought over in Atapuerca (Burgos). “I had really good sensations in the race, I was feeling very comfortable. When there were about two kilometres left I decided to speed up and only when I was near the finishing line did I realise that I was alone”, said Andrea. She is now fully dedicated to the preparation for the European Championship that will be held on 11 December in Turín (Italia).
Andrea is from Formentera, where she started running when she was 5 years old. In 2019 she moved to Valencia for training under the orders of José Antonio Redolat and to study the Degree in Preschool Education in the Universitat de València. “In Formentera I trained alone, so I decided to take the leap in both, sport and studies. I was considering several options regarding the place of studying, training and living, and I went for València”, reminds Andrea, “the truth is that I made a good decision, I have been living here for almost three years and I am delighted, I am passionate about Preschool Education and when it comes to sport, I have improved radically”.
“I see myself as a constant, hard-working and stubborn person. I’m not going to look for any excuses, I always try to fight until the end”
Andrea trains an hour and a half daily. She normally does it in the afternoon, when she does not have classes nor work placements. “Now, with a view to the European Championship, we have planned some trainings in which I have to invest more hours than before. For this reason, I try to take advantage of timetables and when I have spare time in the morning I boost the time of training”, explained the cross runner, who describe herself as a stubborn, persevering and hard-working person.
“At the end of the day it is a habit, if you organise yourself you can combine training with studies, although the truth is that I have been very lucky with my classmates and professors, who help me, give me flexibilities and never put troubles in my way” said Andrea. “The Universitat de València has also made things easier for me, for example now I am doing the work placements in a school and the UV has accepted the enlargement that I requested. In this way, I have a number of hours I can make up if I do not have enough time to do them in the predetermined time. These benefits are really helpful for high performance athletes, specially now that I am becoming more professional and growing as an athlete”, explains the student of 3rd year of Preschool Education.
Andrea Romero is a huge promise for national cross. With only 22 years she has a list of winners that keeps increasing. The champion of the under-23 Spain Championship represented the Spanish team in the European Championships of Samorin 2017 and Lisboa 2019 as under-20 and in Dublin 2021 as under-23. In addition, she has significant international experience in cross running, the last one took place on March when she won bronze by teams in the World University Championships.
“In the future I would like to work with children with special needs and, sportingly, I want to focus on continuing growing and going as far as possible in Cross Country”
Perseverance and maturity are two of the virtues describing this young athlete that in a future sees herself working on her two passions: “when it comes to the labour market my passion would be working with children with special needs, and regarding the sports world, I would like to keep growing in my sport and going as far as possible”. With the possibility of taking part in an Olympic Games, Andrea says that “it is a big dream and it is needed going step by step”. In addition, the athlete shows her disagreement with the fact that Cross will not be Olympic in Paris 2024, “I hope that for the JJOO of Los Ángeles 2028 it will be part again of the games because it is a discipline completely different to athletics. There are a lot of people who is excellent on track, who manage to do awesome running times, and then in cross country they are low in international rankings, and that is because it is another discipline completely different. It needs a specific training and it should have its place in the Olympic Games”.
Being focused on the European Championship of December, Andrea Romero is driven to face this challenge “I think that all the preparation and trainings are giving results, I feel strong and I am looking forward to it. It is my last year as under-23, I have lot of experience and, although I am aware of the high level that there is abroad, I am not going to look for any excuses, as always, I am going to try to fight to the end to excel in what I do”, affirms the Spanish champion.
