The classmate who formed the Olympic beach volleyball couple: “If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here”

Davide Piano June 6, 2024

0 3 minutes read

"The Games always provide extra motivation, I have experience and I hope to live up to it"

Tania Moreno (Madrid, 2002) and Daniela Álvarez (Gijón, 2001) managed to achieve one of their great dreams just a few days ago. They will be a couple in their first Olympic Games and they will do so in a dream place for both: “Honestly, right now I can only think of Paris as the best place to play. It is the city that I have here right now, I have to take advantage of the opportunity and I also have a photo when I was little under the Eiffel Tower that I would like to be able to repeat,” admits Tania. Regarding this, Daniela adds: “I grew up watching all the candidatures from Madrid and it would have been a very good place, but Paris sounds spectacular too.”

The two joined their paths in 2017 after a life marked by sport and family effort, as is the case of Tania: “My history is marked by my parents. My mother was a professional beach volleyball player and my father was her coach. “I think I had no choice but to be here playing, but we couldn’t have made a better decision.”

Daniela started playing tennis, but she will soon change the racket for the sand: “When I was 14, I left tennis and started playing beach volleyball. Life takes me to Lorca, very happy and grateful to have made that decision. The classmate who sat next to me in class played track volleyball and told me to sign up.. I wanted to go to the United States to play tennis, but he ended up convincing me to make the two things compatible. A few months later, they offered me the opportunity to go to the permanent beach volleyball camp after having played only 9 days. I was very bad, but they saw conditions in me and here I am. “I played with Jessica Bouzas and now we could meet in the Games, it would be very special.”

Regarding the decision to unite in the arena, Tania details the keys to a great relationship: “Let’s call it marriage. We have different things, we know how to solve different situations and we manage to find that connection from outside. We are able to manage those conflicts and it is something positive for us. It emerged in the rotation of the lower categories. It was in a European Under-18, nobody told us that we worked, we felt it. “I don’t think anyone has put pressure on us to play together until now because we have traveled the entire world together.”

European runners-up a year ago, the two face Paris with great enthusiasm: “Let’s enjoy, be ambitious and give everything we have to make the most of the experience.. We have not set a challenge for ourselves in terms of results, but we have given everything to try to reach the top.”