Lucas Eguibar (San Sebastián, 29 years old) arrives at the AS office smiling. It is not for less. An important season concluded on Sunday. The second Crystal Globe that accredits the winner of the general of the world Cup snowboard cross (he already won it in 2015), surpassed in an exciting final by the German Martin Noerlbut the important thing, he says, is that he has returned to “compete”, and that makes him “happy”.
Because Luki, as he is affectionately known, was walking not long ago in a pit of pain due to a back injury that led him to even think about withdrawing. It has cost him, never better said, blood, sweat and tears, because the treatment has been based on stem cells, a technique that, he confesses, not even his doctor dared to explain to him “for fear that he would give up”. The feeling was that his spine was “breaking”. An ordeal that did not even let him sleep if there were no medications to alleviate the suffering. All that is more or less left behind. She is still watching her back, and there are exercises from her training routines, “like squats”, that she has had to remove because they are contraindicated, but she has enjoyed again, “to have the sensations of before”. “I’ve been me again”, summarizes the San Sebastian.
And it has been noticed. Nine World Cup events this season. A win (Sierra Nevada). Final Six. More than ever. More even than the champion, Noerl. “The only drawback is that I have been fourth many times,” he laments. Even so, he is satisfied, because it is already known in competitive maturity, the one that gives patience, perspective, strategy, “the most difficult thing to achieve in this sport.” “I have competed very well. Don’t worry. Intelligent. When I have had to be aggressive, I have been. The races have gone very well for me and that is from experience ”, she points out. If the medal that AS has around his neck is silver, it is due to a matter of centimeters, the measure in which everything is decided in this discipline. He and Noerl played everything for everything in the last descent of the year, in Mont Sainte Anne, a “spectacular” race with constant changes of initiative.
After a year like this, the logical thing would be to think big. And Lucas does, but he adds a pinch of prudence to the cocktail. “Of course I want to go, that is not a question”, he exclaims when the next Winter Olympic Games (Cortina d’Ampezzo, 2026) appear in the conversation. But they are still “far away”, like the next season of the World Cup, in which he sees himself fighting for the glass globeand he prefers to temporize something, not much either: “This year we began to see how it was going a bit and we gradually trained. We started with three descents, then four, then five… Because we didn’t want to risk doing seven descents a day and the back would suffer. So, now knowing that we can do it, from the beginning we can go to that ”, she develops.
Whatever happens in the following course, this will remain in Luki’s memory as the one of his competitive resurrection, the one in which he has once again been the elite rider who won the World Cup or hung an Olympic gold (also has two silvers). “We have not left anything in the bedroom, we have tried everything we could”, he celebrates. Now what he has to do is rest, and then “start over, do everything as well as this year.” It is not a small task. From there, time and his body will tell.
A “very good” base in which Romero stands out
A very good base has already been achieved”, highlights eguibar when asked if he has a relay, if the fruitful years that riders like him have given to the Spanish winter sport, regino hernandez either Queralt Castellet They will continue in the future.
In that sense, in snowboard cross it has been rearing its head for a long time alvaro romero. Another from San Sebastian, 19 years old and since Thursday the junior world champion of the modality. “I am super happy for him, super happy, because he deserves it. He is a very good uncle, ”says Eguibar.
Countrymen, train together, something that luki I think it benefits both of them. They feed back: “It’s much better for me and for him too. It is a sport in which you need to train with another person. I can’t spend the entire preseason without facing others, because then I arrive and it’s the races and I’m not used to going with others”.
He sees a lot of potential, in Romero and in other young talents like Tony Toledo, also a 2003 vintage, but he considers that they still lack a point of cooking. “Both he and Álvaro have things that they are doing very well and others that are a little greener. I think they lack a little solidity in training, improve their starts and be more aggressive”, he points out.
He also believes that rushing does not help. He, who started out in “nothingness”, would like the kids to learn more in minor competitions like the European Cup before making the leap to the world stage. “I insisted many times to the Federation that they not bring them to world Cup, that they let them have the European Cup so that they could do many races ”, he explains. Be that as it may, the good news is that his successes have not fallen on deaf ears.
