¿Cómo le irá a Colombia en los Juegos Olímpicos de París?

0:06 I' m Roberto Pombo. Welcome to my questions. An average rush program sponsored by Kafam, family compensation box. We are close to the thirty- third edition of the Paris Olympic Games. Colombia has improved its participation and medalist over the years. Why, if we are power in cycling, it is not reflected in Olympic medals. Why skating is not an Olympic sport. What needs to be done to further boost Colombian sport for this chapter. We spoke with U Valentina sports journalist Peña with Cecilia la Chechi and Baena world champion in skating, with the director of as Colombia, Steven Arce, with Pedro Aguirre, project consultant of the Olympic movement, with Katio Rego, expert in cycling and with Hernán Peraez. I am Roberto Pombo and this is chapter 90 of my questions welcome. In the history of mankind few customs are maintained. It ' s a story of change, of progress, of setbacks. Think of your family’ s traditions that have lasted as generations go by. Now think of humanity in proportions, not decades, but millennia, that we have radically changed and write texts on papyrus and scrolls, we go on to dictate or let artificial intelligence do it. The customs to cook, make objects, transport us, entertain us have changed. We no longer eat a newly married and

1:38 roasted animal in front of a fire. Now it' s a meal made by someone else who took it to us by a messenger on a motorcycle and who we eat in front of a TV screen. Today a cell phone and only a century ago. It took several days to cross the country through the simulated boat train, or it took weeks to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a ship with the risk of shipwreck. Now it' s a matter of a couple of hours on a flight, arriving from Santa Marta to Bogotá, or taking ten hours sleeping and watching a couple of movies, a flight to Bogotá Madrid. To think of what we call the years before Christ is almost to think of another humanity. We read or see what the species did in the time of its customs and they seem a completely different species from ours. But there are many traditions that have persisted since then, many of them religious and in other cases. Unfortunately, like wars, it also continues. Perhaps we no longer sacrifice animals in the name of God or wars no longer consist of armies of thousands of men on horseback with spears and swords facing body to body.

2:42 But the custom of worshipping gods and confronting one another remains intact. However, there is a third tradition, a rather old one, that remains to this day, and it is that of the Olympic Games, an event that has lasted millennia, that has adjusted to it times of world wars, pandemics and technology. Yes, because although the version that is about to begin in Paris is the thirty- third, it does not mean that it is actually an event with only thirty- three versions. The origins of the Olympic Games are nebulous and it is not known exactly how they began. It is said that it all began as a funeral ceremony to commemorate the soldiers killed at war.

3:24 This has been a theme in Greek literature since Homer who narrates in the ilyate the struggles between two men, a race of carts pulled by horses, races on foot, competitions to launch objects such as boars or aim tests with bow and arrow. But we are not going to go over millennia of sports, its origins and its changes. Let us advance to the present day, to the thirty- threeth version of the modern era, of a celebration of the capacity of the human body. Until the day I record this program, the Colombian delegation has sixty- eight seats to participate in the other Olympics that are distributed. Thus, the majority of the quotas are for the female football team, which are eighteen. The cycling there are seven guaranteed quotas, five for track, two for track route and its different categories have six quotas.

4:14 Boxing and BMX have five each four weight- lifting quotas. Gymnastics has three and other sports with one or two places. In April of this year, Herma Ruiz, vice- president of the Colombian Olympic Committee, spoke with national radio and said that she aspired to forty more quotas. Thirty- eight quotas had been reached at that time, so the Committee expects it to be seventy - eight quotas, so we look forward to the time remaining to meet that expectation. According to a contract known to the time data unit signed between the Ministry of Sport and the Colombian Olympic Committee, the Government planned a goal of one hundred and fifteen athletes, which would indicate that the Committee was far from achieving it. Olympic delegations almost Colombia have increased over the years. We went from a single athlete at the Los Angeles Olympic Games, one thousand nine hundred thirty- two to forty- three athletes in Mexico sixty- eight. The number has been increasing for a few years, in which it was slightly lower than the previous, although with a consistency. At the Beijing Games two thousand eight were sixty- seven Colombian athletes and four years later, in London there were one hundred and four. The first time the number was greater than a hundred. In the next version, the number grew quite a bit again.

5:30 In the Rio Olympics, the number of athletes from the Colombian delegation reached its peak with one hundred and forty- seven. However, four years ago in Tokyo, that number dropped to less than half seventy- one. Why is this drop in the number of athletes in the delegation compared to four years ago? I asked Steve Narci, director of the Sports Environment as Colombia. Well, you can' t just talk about quality. Or that at this point things are getting much more, even though they are getting bad. The national government' s investment in sport has not had enough filters to get them to where they should go. And that is a longer chapter that surely deserves to be expanded later. But beyond that, because of something very basic, and that is that we do not have the classification of several teams that collectively add up more classified to the Olympic Games. For example, we don' t have the representation of the men' s football team at the Olympic Games and those are at least twenty- three players. Then we have twenty- three less quotas. So that makes for practical purposes, that we have less classified.

6:40 But, as I say, it' s not just about saying it ' s not that I look. There' s the reason why they' re doing things wrong. We' re with less athletes. You don' t have to have too, and be very technical about this, the magnifying glass about collective and individual sports. In the individual we will carry almost the same people as in the past Olympic Games. We must be honest and not be carried away by patriotism. We' re not an Olympic medalist country. Colombian athletes have won thirty- four Olympic medals, five of which have been gold, thirteen silver and sixteen bronze. This is not ranked fifty- nine, far from countries like the United States, which leads the list in an absolute way with two thousand six hundred fifty- five medals, or China, which has one thousand ten. Cuba is the first Latin American country on the list to be in 16th place with two hundred and thirty- five medals.

7:34 Although the country has participated in all versions of the Olympic Games since one thousand nine hundred and thirty- two, it took him forty years to have an athlete on the podium. The first Colombian to win an Olympic medal has a name that doesn' t look like a Colombian. Helmut Bellingrodwolf Barranquiller, son of German emigrants. At the Munich Olympic Games one thousand nine hundred and seventy - two, he opened the way with a silver medal. At Olympic Tyre. Belingrot fired sixty shots, reaching five hundred sixty- five points out of a total of six hundred, equalling the score of Soviet Lakov Checksniak, who won the gold medal. He participated again in Montreal in a thousand nine hundred and seventy- six, but remained in sixth place. That same year we also obtained two other bronze medals in boxing we had to wait eight years to see Colombian medalists again, and it was at the Los Angeles Olympics in a thousand nine hundred and eighty- four, when Bellingrot repeated the feat and took the silver medal again. This was the only one the Committee obtained in that version. In seven thousand nine hundred and eighty- eight, boxer Jorge Julio Rocha hung himself the bronze medal. In Sydney two thousand was found one of the historic moments of Colombian sport. Tapesista caucana mar know Urrutia hung for the first time a gold medal for Colombia. This marked a milestone for the country and for national sport. O o o o. It was only in Url London, in two thousand twelve that one leap in the number of medals was made, when there were nine, a gold medal, that of Mariana Pajon

9:07 in BMX, three silver, rigo in cycling in Triple Route, Ibarwin caterina jump and again lifting weights at the hands of Oscar figueroa and five bronze in BMX, judo fight, lifting weights and then you in Rio de Janeiro were eight and in the past and in touch there were five. According to the contract of the Ministry of Sport and the Colombian Olympic committee that I mentioned earlier, it is expected to increase or equal the five medals of Tokyo two thousand twenty. As read in the contract and according to the classification projection. It is expected to obtain seven Olympic medals, being athletic sports, cycling BMX weightlifting and fighting the most chosen sports to add in Olympic medalism. This goal is realistic. I transferred the question to BLEW sports journalist Radio Valentina peña and this she told me. I think that goal of getting at least seven medals is achievable. I don' t think it' s far off, but yes.

10:07 It is very likely that none of these medals are gold. And this is simply due to the fact that in comparison to past years, as happened at the London Olympic Games, at the Olympic Games in Brazil, Colombia no longer has a supremely dominant athlete in a discipline, as happened at the time, with Mariana Pajón in bm X or Caterina Bargüen in triple jump, what I do see are many potential medals in terms of soon bronze silver. With the case of Lorin Arena, making marches, a possibility Natalia Linares in long jump could be a surprise this whale athlete, who has given a lot of what to talk about and who can be, as we say, the big surprise to Colombia those Olympic Games geni arias and Ingrid Valencia in boxing already know what it is to get a medal, So they are also important cards of our country and, of course, let us not forget to lift weights, where Colombia always has representatives. We have Luis Javier Mosquera, who was already present with Olympic medal in Tokyo, we also have GeniaÁlvarez, who has done very well in the female branch, more particularly lifting weights fifty- nine kilograms. So I do see possibilities for Martaba medal. Me in cycling or that whole vink. There are the possibilities of the medal, but the gold I do not see as clear as many people and they could see it as expected in the estimates of the Ministry of Sport of the Colombian Olympic Committee.

11:24 Alterophilia, that is, weight lifting, is discipline. What more medals he ' s given the country. From cinema and two thousand to Tokyo two thousand twenty, the Colombian pesists have hung nine medals, two gold medals, four silver medals and three bronze medals. Only in the World Heavyweight Cup that took place in Pucket, Thailand. Last April, Colombian pessist Jason López won a gold medal with a world record of a hundred and eighty- two kilos and obtained silver in sending two hundred and ten kilos, reaching a total of three hundred and ninety- two kilos. I assure you of your position in the ranking one place for the Olympic Games in Paris two thousand twenty- four. In the Pan American games that took place between October and November of two thousand twenty- three, the Colombian participants won six medals, three gold and three silver. In the Parisians that were made in Caracas. In February of this year, Colombia won the competition with twenty- five gold medals, ten silver medals and seven bronze medals, and at last year' s World Weights Championship, the women' s delegation won the champ and won two gold medals, eight silver medals and three bronze medals, but at the Olympic level the country is ranked twenty- two medals, with Russia being first with eighty- nine medals. Of course, we are the Latin American country with the most medals and this sport, but despite the fact that heterophilia has given the country a majority of medals, it is not even close to the most popular sport.

12:48 Otherwise it happens, for example, with football, a sport that has amateurs in heaps, but that at Olympic level has not had glories. He has participated only in five New Mexico Games one thousand nine hundred and sixty- eight, Munich one thousand nine hundred and seventy- two, Moscow one thousand nine hundred and eighty, Barcelona one thousand nine hundred and eighty- two and Rio two thousand and sixteen. It was in the latter that the Olympic football team had its best performance, reaching quarterfinals and falling to Brazil. In previous years it never went beyond the group phase. The women' s selection of this sport has participated in two versions of the London Olympic Games two thousand twelve and Rio two thousand sixteen, in which they failed to pass the group stage.

13:31 This year will be your third participation and hopefully you can do better. Why, being the most popular sport, we' re doing so badly in football at the Olympics. I looked for journalist Hernán Peraez to help me resolve this concern and this he told me has always gone wrong in football in the framework of the Olympic Games, where we went for the first time in a thousand nine hundred and sixty- eight, to the Olympics in Mexico, and it goes wrong because we continue to stick to an ancient principle of just competing, not being protagonists and less having ambition to win a medal. We have had some selection of good game, such as the one of one thousand nine hundred ninety- two in the Barcelona Olympics, but really the interest of the leadership when talking about its twenty Olympic Games sub seventeen is to look for a way to send footballers abroad. And in that regard, technicians often give contentillo to so many observers, managers, club presidents. That is the serious problem we have perhaps in a more serious time, Colombian football aspires to win, not just to compete. On the other side. There is a sport in which we can consider ourselves power, which have thousands of fans and with which we have achieved some medals. And cycling, after football, where they have made them, a feminis Da has eighteen Cupus. Cycling is the sport with the

15:01 most representatives of the country, with seven classified. Here it competes in two categories, track also known as Kevin and route. In the track category, the cyclist María Luisa Calle hung the bronze medal in Athens two thousand six. In the route category, Colombia has a silver medal, which the cyclist Paice Rigoberto Urán achieved in London two thousand twelve, after losing the gold medal in the final meters against the cyclist Kazakh Alexander Vino Kunov. If Rigo decides to participate in this year' s Olympics, something that is in doubt about the birth of his son, which would be in August, he would become the first Colombian athlete in history to compete in five consecutive editions of the Olympic Games from two thousand eight to two thousand twenty- four. On the other hand, there is the bm X, a young sport and at the Olympic Games it premiered just in Beijing in two thousand eight and in which Colombia has three medals, two gold and one silver that Mariana Pajón won in London two thousand twelve, river two thousand sixteen river two thousand twenty, a crack really, and although those medals are very important for the sport history of the country, comparing them with the tradition and the record of the road cyclists of the great competitions, like the Chinese of Italy, the tour of France the return to Spain, seem little. I then have a doubt why, if we have such good exponents in cycling, the country is not the power of this sport in the Olympics. He' ll take you from the question to the Qatari

16:33 cycling expert and this explained to me in the route cycling. The Colombian runners have stood out in the stage races in the one- day races that run classic type. Those run very differently because of our topography and our altitude. We are more powerful in high mountain racing. Races like the one- day Olympics are not high mountain races, because they have to combine all the terrain there. Then what is needed is runners with a lot of resistance and explosiveness. In addition, a lot of strategy is needed to run intelligently and for that strategy they need equipment. But the quotas that each country has for the race are given by the ranking of the UZZI and we have rarely had the full quota to run. We always go with one or two runners and so it' s very difficult. For example, in the London Olympics, Ringoberto Urán and Sergio Enaón were smart and were able to read the rigo race for a few meters if they did not look back if they took the gold.

17:33 At the Rio Sergio Olympics in Au he was on the run and in the last few kilometers, on a curve that had the pear upside down, he was following the wheel of Nibal and there he lost all the possibility of gold. There is a sport that Colombia is considered a power in which athletes have won all the skating. The national skating team has achieved the title of world champion on eighteen occasions, of which twelve were consecutive. Attentive to this impressive figure, Colombian skaters have won a total of seven hundred and seventy- three medals, three hundred and sixty- five gold medals, two hundred and thirty - four silver medals and one hundred and seventy- four bronze medals. And one of its main stars is the expatinadora cartagenera Cecilia a la Chechi and baena in his showcase. The Chechi has six gold and silver medals from the world championships from the year two thousand to two thousand six. Less than two thousand five and three gold medals from the Central American and Caribbean Games. Despite all this impressive list of sporting triumphs, Colombian skaters do not have Olympic medals because speed skating is not an Olympic sport. Why good it turns out to include a sport in the Olympic Games list It is not easy, and there is a long list of other sports federations along with skating as karate baseball, which expect to be included. Iván Vargas, coach of the National Skating Team and trainer of wolf Skate, told national radio that speed skating cannot be included by

19:04 the tough competition and lovic of other sports. This is what Vargas said to be included in skating in the Olympic program. It has a very high political connotation. Not one hundred and five members of the international Olympic committees who have to vote for a sport to be included in the Olympic programme. And behind that vote, because there are a number of aspects that you know very well that soon the loby All these kinds of situations have not allowed Colombia to make it necessary for it to finally be admitted to the Olympic Games. This answered me Cecilia the cheche and Vaina, ex- patinator and multiple times world champion.

19:49 To the reasons why I consider that race skating is still outside the Olympic Games are the following. First, despite the fact that the five continents are already practiced, participation in the world championships is very low, from about thirty - three to thirty- five countries. Secondly, that we do not have a great international sponsor, the International Federation and in world championships there is no global television, there is no big sponsor and for the olympism industry, I think that has a lot of weight. Third, the standardization of scenarios and careers. Sports scenarios in all countries are still catching up with that scenario standardization regulation and I think it' s just a compelling reason. Also, Fourth, the Power countries have taken their world champions on wheels to the ice, because there they do have the possibility to give Olympic medals to their countries, so that has caused those athletes to migrate and racing skating has been left without those figures worldwide. Unfortunately, despite the hegemony that Colombia has in the world events we see in the world championships winning gold medals more than thirty- three gold medals against countries like France Italy, which win two or three in the medal box. That shows that Colombia is doing its job well, that Colombia is preparing very well, that it has a great sponsor, that they have television, but the other countries, for those reasons, to migrate their athletes and put all their focus on the ice where they can win the Olympic medals,

21:19 that has made that unfortunately, skating is without that possibility and despite all those medals, trophies and championships won, being a sportsman in Colombia is not easy. It is well known that getting sponsorship support to participate in international championships or simply to train, is very difficult. A recent example is that of boxer Jubertgen Martínez, winner of the Silver Medal of Rio two thousand sixteen. In March, Martínez denounced in a radio snail program that the Ministry of Sport stopped giving him financial support for eight months. Other sportsmen, such as sprinter Johnny Rentería, also denounced Instagram account that the Ministry of Sport has not paid for their incentives. In addition, they owe them the Bolivarian, South American, Central American and Pan- American medals of the Olympic cycle. Let' s hear a fragment of what he said. We have a question about what is going on with our economic stimulus. It is a very important year where the most important fairs in the world come, where the month of January, February March has not generated any of the payments of many athletes. We haven ' t communicated with the Ministry and they don' t have the resources to pay us. Something similar denounced the Olympic disco launch athlete and gold medalist at the Central American and Caribbean Games, Mauricio Ortega, who complained about the Ministry ' s negligence with the country' s high- performance athletes. In March of this year, athletes such as Judoka and Olympic medalist Juria Albear, former

22:52 world champion Cecilia Baena, and former Tour de France rider Victor Hugo Peña, addressed a letter to President Petro and the Ministry of Sport in which they called for the creation of a national sports table and pointed out the lack of effort in the sport budget. And if there is a portfolio that has had problems it is from the Ministry and the sport that in the almost two years of President Petro has already had three different ministers and several scandals. First was the departure of a former minister of Olympic medalist, Mar Isabel Urrutia, whom the President himself declared insubstantial due to his actions indelicate with the budget of the Nation.

23:32 Then he came to Stripth Rodríguez, who resigned in February of that year because of the scandal over the loss of the headquarters of the Pan American Games of two thousand twenty- seven in Barranquilla, and in March Luz Cristina López was positioned, although it makes sense that a minister in this portfolio does not last long if the work environment is as tense as President Petro did, who considers the creation of that portfolio to be a mistake. I haven' t exactly seen the goodness of doing that. I can' t find him. Looks like it' s more of a waste of time, but that' s the rule. In sport it weighs more bricks than education. That makes a sense. The more bricks the more corruption is contracted. There and that constant change of sports ministers has caused the processes with federations and athletes to be interrupted. The former president of the Colombian Olympic Committee, Baltasar Medina, told the Journal the following time to Bro Comillas. Every seven months a minister is not a guarantee that everything is well separated. Processes are changed, everything is rebooted almost from scratch. That for the national plan of sport subtracts does not add Comillas closure. And while President Petru says that more brick means more corruption, the country' s sports arenas are precarious. This was especially seen in last year' s national games, which took place on the Cafetero axis, when, according to a chronicle from the country' s daily newspaper, the athletes of their quash who opened the day arrived in an unfinished building with still

25:04 armed scaffolding and polyshadow on the outside, with construction materials abandoned here and there and tools crammed into the rest area. Many of the common spaces inside the building were sealed with plastic yellow ribbons with the phrase of danger do not pass and according to the prosecutor' s office, the tennis courts of the field in Pereira, the Colosseum Major and the skate track of Manizales, along with the water complex of Armenia and other scenarios, failed to be completed in time. In addition, some of them experienced delays of almost eighty percent in the execution of the works. I see all this news and I can' t help but wonder what many have already wondered, what needs to be done to further boost Colombian sport? This was told by Pedro Aguirre, the executive director of Legas and Sports and project consultant for the Olympic Movement. It is a reality that there is much to improve sports processes. The flaws are given special for bureaucratic matters that sometimes delay support for athletes, coaches and in generating the institutions that lead the sport in the country. To go is not the biggest challenge. Once an athlete begins to give results, he enters the support programs of both the nation and his department and is almost nothing short of them.

26:15 They have the financial support of trainers, physio psychologists who are constantly accompanying them around the world in their preparation for the great competitions. Of course, with failures of improvement opportunities with occasional delays and discomforts, but in general, on the continent we are a country that stands out in the preparation and competition processes. The challenges are especially in supporting talent, in strengthening prospects processes, in their sports projects, accompanying athletes' families and investing in the regions, in improving infrastructure and modernizing sports equipment, in giving them more national and international skills for young people and working hard in their mentality. This requires consolidating the system of sport at the base, clubs, training schools and leagues, training and bringing knowledge in sports where we lack much, because it is working in conjunction with the structure of education, that is, schools and universities that are generally not flexible with sport, are long- term bets and it is proven that they have resulted. This must come with public support and infatuating the private sector with a solid program, with visibility and fascinating stories. It is a combination of factors for a ruse to reach a competition like an Olympic Games in the best way. But the most important is that it has been part of a long- term process, that has prepared it and mentalized it for high competition.

27:26 I have the confidence that Colombia will do well in Paris two thousand twenty - four, as well as the great results we had in London two thousand twelve, in Rio two thousand sixteen and Tokyo two thousand twenty. Being a high- performance athlete in Colombia is a double effort. First, because it takes discipline, on time and dedication to achieve, compete and win everything they earn on behalf of the whole country. But, moreover, it seems that they must achieve all this without guarantees, without inappropriate conditions, with a short professional life that asks them to stay young and in an ungrateful manner, despite medals, trophies and championships. That is why all the achievements of our athletes are worth twice as much, although they should not have to be. I ' m Roberto Pombo. This was chapter 90 of my questions. See you in the next chapter from now on. This chapter of my questions is available on all podcast platforms. This episode was made possible by Kafan. Family compensation box. Dirección Roberto Pombo, Producción General, Juan Abel Gutiérrez, Asesor editorial, Daniel San Pedro Espina, Guiones juan Abel Gutiérrez y Johnny Rodríguez. Field production Marcela Salazar and Lucía Beltrán. Post- production of audio Carlos Bernar