Venezuela in Tokyo: the smallest delegation in 20 years and the greatest options to bring gold
The Venezuelan flag that flies at the Tokyo Olympics symbolizes a contradiction. The oil nation, immersed in the worst crisis in its history, has the smallest delegation of athletes since Sydney 2000. For the first time a Venezuelan, Eldric Sella, participates in the refugee Olympic team as an expression of the calamities that have expelled more than five million Venezuelans from his country. Even so, the chances of bringing gold medals this year are great. Venezuela secured quotas for 43 athletes in the Olympic event that began this week. Much less than the 86 who went to Rio de Janeiro, the 69 who were in London, and not to mention the historical peak of 108 participating athletes in Beijing 2008, when the boom in high oil prices was experienced, which allowed Chavismo to export its revolution in the region and sell the so-called golden generation of sport, of which there is little left today.
The jumper Yulimar Rojas and the karate fighter Antonio Díaz were the Venezuelan flag bearers at the opening ceremony and embody the possibilities of bringing medals to the country. The Venezuelan delegation has 44 classified athletes: 11 by world ranking (karate, fencing, BMX freestyle, boxing, hammer throw, shot put, judo, weightlifting and golf); four per country quota (sailing, cycling, judo and sports shooting); three for qualifying events (decorative jumps, fencing and karate); six for minimum marks (athletics and swimming); two for continental quota (karate and open water) and two teams together (volleyball and rowing). Boxer Gabriel Maestre decided a few days ago to withdraw because the games coincide with a fight with Canadian Cody Crowley in professional boxing, where he is looking to make his way. 43 left.
Behind the names of those classified there is an odyssey to achieve classification, which is what Venezuelan citizens also experience. Elite athletes like Rojas have had to leave the country in order to develop. She owns several world rankings in triple jump, the athlete settled in Spain more than five years ago to continue her training. The stadium where she took her first jumps when she lived in the poor neighborhood of Pozuelos, located in the eastern state of Anzoátegui, is today almost in ruins.
Open water swimmer Paola Pérez had to emigrate to Chile in search of pools where she could train twice a day to maintain her physical condition. She had already tried to establish herself in Ecuador before. In her country there is no infrastructure and she did not even have a coach. This is the case of many other Venezuelan athletes who continue their training on her own, without trainers. Pérez stays in Santiago de Chile giving swimming lessons. To fulfill her dream of being in Tokyo, she opened a campaign on the Go Fund Me platform —become the lifeline for Venezuelans to face illnesses or professional challenges— due to the lack of support from the Venezuelan State.
In 2019, during the Pan American Games in Peru, Pérez was in the news. She almost died of hypothermia competing without the regulation wetsuit to swim in low temperatures. This demonstrated the precariousness in which Venezuelan athletes are trained. Her delegation had no medical equipment. “Many things came to my mind, the fact that I didn't have a swimsuit, the others did, they were going to have an advantage. I had not had a preparation, they did, so that was causing me to fade more and more mentally, ”she recalled a few months ago in an interview with the France 24 channel.
Only three Venezuelans have won Olympic gold: boxer Francisco 'Morochito' Rodríguez (Mexico, 1968), taekwondo athlete Arlindo Gouveia (Barcelona, 1992) and fencer Rubén Limardo (London, 2012). The most recent gold also has a history that denotes the challenges of the sport in the country. Closely linked to the Government, Limardo was elected in 2015 for a parliamentary seat by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. He quickly abandoned his public office and confessed in subsequent interviews that he agreed to enter politics because he believed that it could bring benefits to Venezuelan fencing. Last year he posted on his social media that he was working as a food delivery boy in the Polish city where he lives in order to continue his training. He complained of not being able to dedicate himself to his work as an athlete due to the need to work on other things to support his family. Even being a world champion, he was left without government support to continue his career.
“I hear a lot about Venezuela being a powerhouse, but my brother Francisco, a Pan American medalist, runs out of training to work as a DJ. Others on the team work as waiters. Meanwhile, countries like Brazil send athletes to gain experience in Europe”, he said last September in an interview when he was inducted into the World Fencing Hall of Fame, the first Latin American to do so. “To recover the level of the national sport it is necessary to have planning, resources, logistics, but the most important thing is knowledge”, he commented.
On the way to Tokyo, also delayed by a pandemic, there are also losses due to forfeit in the qualifying stages of some teams due to lack of funds to pay for air tickets to attend the competitions. The Vinotinto volleyball club lost by forfeit in 2017 when it was going to debut in the World League broadcast. The Ministry of Sport and the Venezuelan Volleyball Federation did not issue the tickets in time for the men's team to participate, although they are in Tokyo today. That same year, the women's team could not play the Grand Prix final for the same reason. Less than a month ago, Claudymar Garcés from the karate team was about to be left out of these Olympic Games due to logistical problems to travel to the pre-Olympic held in Paris. The image of the athletes stranded at the Maiquetía airport, minutes after missing the flight, spread through social networks as another sign of the lack of support for Venezuelan sports.
Athletes lead a sacrificed life. In Venezuela it means going through a path full of obstacles that have nothing to do with their discipline. Lack of resources, the impossibility of completing training sessions due to lack of equipment, gyms and courts and of attending international competitions due to the drastic reduction in air connectivity that dates back to long before the pandemic, in addition to the economic crisis that has reduced the GDP to a third in less than a decade.
For some athletes, it is even difficult to eat adequately in a country where a third of the population lives in food insecurity, according to the United Nations World Food Program. Most lack coaches in their training process and even when they become professionals. The coaching staff of the National Sports Institute survives on precarious salaries. Despite this, Rubén Limardo, Yulimar Rojas, Antonio Díaz —who is participating in karate's debut at the Olympic Games—, Daniel Derhs in freestyle BMX, judoka Ariquelis Barrios and weightlifters Yusleidy Figueroa, Julio Mayora and Naryury Pérez are in the best places in the rankings in their disciplines. Some Venezuelan medals could come out of this group.
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