You are currently training in Brazil, why did you choose?
It is that Brazil has a high level of competition, what’s more, the top 3 men are Brazilian. So, in any case, I think it was a super good option to come here and train obviously, I travel and in some championships, I train with a local coach that I know well on the beach so as not to arrive without knowing anything. It is not my first time in Brazil, in fact, as soon as they released the pandemic, the country that I came to recover from not having been surfing and all that was Brazil, so I decided that here was going to be like my place to go and come and train.
How long will you stay there?
I will be three weeks. Last week there is a championship that is the last qualifying championship for the Challengers, which is the circuit we do to qualify for the World Tour, so this will be the last championship that will define who is going to do the Challenger this year and see if this year we can enter the World Tour.
Do you feel satisfied with your performance in those last post-pandemic years?
I think that 2022 was a year of a lot of teaching, I learned a lot from all the championships themselves. I didn’t have the year I would have wanted in a Challenger, but I think you learn from that. Well, it was my second year that I do the challengers in general and I always went without so much confidence in myself and without so much insecurity in something that I do well.
Is it a new goal for this year?
This year I have proposed to move from that area, which is not comfort, but it is not something I want either. What I want is to reach the top 10 and from that top 10 to be able to qualify for the Tour. 2022 was a very busy year, in quotes, because there was no classification, but there were a thousand events, one after the other.
Despite this, you were among the top four at the Isa World Games…
Yes, the truth is that at ISA last year it was incredible, I had just finished second in a South American event in Brazil and from there I traveled to ISA, and came fourth. On the one hand it was incredible because I really did not expect that, I had a difficult year in championships abroad so I arrived a bit discouraged, the wave is not going very well for me, it was very difficult and to have been able to reach the final and have scored points to the team, I think it was vital for me, especially vital for my confidence, after that I traveled to Challenger in Portugal and had a fifth which was my best result in a Challenger, So I was gaining more confidence in competing, which is a circuit in which I saw myself psychologically affected.
According to what you tell me, are you working a little more in the mental area?
I already have a lot of time with a psychologist, he helps me and gives me tools at times when I feel bad, anxiety, panic, a lot of feelings and emotions that you don’t realize you have, and in the end they pass so quickly , that you have to try to be as calm as possible in difficult moments. I think it is vital to have one for anyone. We athletes suffer a lot, it is very difficult to maintain yourself psychologically.
Focusing again on what is coming this year, the Pan American Games are in Santiago with a lot of expectation in Peruvian surfing…
It is a very demanding championship, which practically generates a quota for the Olympics. I wouldn’t want to miss out on a classification in between and it’s a wave that suits us Peruvians a lot, it’s going to be the Pichilemu in Punta de Lobos, it’s a strong wave that I really like. I would love to be able to win another medal, to be able to bring the gold one, but hey, step by step, first we have to qualify and after that we can train for that championship and be able to look for classifications, which is what I think everyone is looking for now.
And on the tactical issue, what is it that you are working on correcting?
Now, more than anything, it is about making an evolution of my surfing, more than competitive, I am a person who competes quite well, I make mistakes, but not so serious, so to speak, but right now my focus is to exploit my surfing, risk more, vary much more with the maneuvers, then, in truth, this trip has been prepared for that type, I have come to be able to expand my repertoire and obviously also to compete, but I feel that the most important thing is going to be that; expand the repertoire and grow.
The Pan American Surfing Games in Panama will open quotas for Santiago, who makes up the women’s team of Team Peru?
If I’m not mistaken, I think the first eight positions for women and men enter. So, we are Sol (Aguirre), Arena (Rodríguez), Melanie (Giunta) and myself on the women’s team. The four of us are going to advance, and if the four of us enter the qualifying zone, the two best ranked in that championship qualify for Santiago, two per country qualify.
Currently, how is the level of national surfing?
Peru is known in surfing for the union we have and for always supporting the whole world through thick and thin. In any case, Peru is one of the well-ranked countries worldwide. We have Luca who has been the first Peruvian to enter the World Tour. Finally, it is something that gives us a name. You are simply not Daniella, but you are representing Peru, which is a powerful country.
Tokyo was your first Olympic Games, how did you cope with that fact?
It was not a year in which I felt good, so to speak, it was a complicated year and I think Tokyo was that, it was the result of all the burden that came with it, it was the result of all the time that had passed in the pandemic and that he had not had time to train and have returned, having resumed when he saw how he had classified. I was never able to show what I was made of at the time. I think that if I qualify for the Olympics, you will see a much more mature and competitively intelligent Daniella.
Do you see Paris 2024 as a possible rematch?
It would be a rematch anyway, in itself I would love to qualify. The girls have more and more level, each time the sport expands more, there are many more girls competing, countries that you thought had nothing to do with it, have a level. Now that the girls and boys who have dual nationality are moving to other regions, to other countries. So, there is a level of competition, it will be the World Cup, which this year does not count for us, but next year it will already be qualifying. It’s going to be super interesting.
After winning the Saquarema Surf Festival in Brazil, you returned to Peru to compete in the Punta Rocas Open…
Well, really, my last road of the year was going to be that Saquarema that was in Brazil. I didn’t feel good enough to finish doing the Challengers tour and I decided with myself to stay and have a good preseason. I arrived in Lima and I had forgotten that there was that championship, I think I was already registered, I had already registered and to compete in a wave that I like, they don’t have me in contact with my people and compete with my family, outside watching me.
Finally, after almost three years, you managed to win a junior championship…
I could never be the South American Junior champion. So, it was super special for me to finally finish the juniors that way it went well. Punta Rocas is a wave that I will always have in me, it gave me Lima and it gives me thousands of more championships. Getting there after having won I obviously wanted to win the QS as well, but I feel like I was so focused on the Juniors, that I sort of left the QS aside a bit, which, for me, wasn’t going to change any score itself. , and I decided to just close myself in winning the juniors.
What goals do you have in mind?
I would love to enter the world, it is still the same goal, so I continue to shine and train for that really and yes, I believe that every moment we are more solid in what could be the classification for the Tour and already being on the Tour to look for the world title, no, I think it will be difficult, everything is difficult, but I would like to see myself there, I would like to enter that tour. I would love to achieve that goal, it would be something that would really fulfill me a lot, sportingly speaking, and I would like at some point to be able to become a benchmark in the country,

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