The dominance of Colombian athletes in the Bolivarian Games
The dominance of Colombian athletes in the Bolivarian Games. Sara Lopez and Daniel Munoz both won three gold medals for Colombia at the 2022 Bolivarian Games in Valledupar. The host country, Colombia, won seven of the ten available titles in the archery events. In the recurve events, only Lester Ortegon of Ecuador and Javiera Andrades of Chile, as well as the Venezuelan mixed recurve team, stopped the sweep. In addition, Lopez and Munoz won the title for the mixed compound team, as well as their own team and individual events.
Lopez’s take on the Games
“It’s always a fight between Colombia and Venezuela in terms of who wins the Games, but there are more archers than the last edition of the Games that were four years ago in Santa Marta, also in Colombia. We usually have around five countries in the games, but this year we had 11 countries as they invited other countries that are really strong in archery, such as El Salvador and Chile,” said the current compound women’s World Archery Champion.
The Triumph
Lopez won the individual gold by beating two of her own teammates. First, Alejandra Usquiiano lost in the semifinals (149-148), and then Maria Valentina Suarez lost in the final (10-9) on a tiebreak after she and Lopez tied in regulation (147-147). In the final, Munoz also beat Jagdeep Singh Mejia. The score was 148-146.
Lopez has won both the individual and team gold medals at the Bolivarian Games for the past three years in a row. She did the same thing in 2013 and 2017. The Bolivarian Games are a regional multi-sport event with teams from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela. These countries are all connected to Simon Bolivar, a political figure from South America’s past. In addition, the Bolivarian Sports Organisation has recently added more countries, like Chile.
Lopez said that the Games were the perfect way to prepare for a busy month that will include both the World Games and stage four of the 2022 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Medellin, Colombia. The Bolivarian Games are a big source of national pride and a big step for teams in the area who want to get better at sports. Lopez and her teammates from Colombia didn’t go to stage three of the 2022 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Paris because they wanted to focus on and get ready for the competition in Valledupar.
“They mean a lot to us because the government invests in their infrastructure; they make buildings like pools and archery centres. They put a lot of money into these places for the city so that people in the city can go there and practise different sports,” explained Lopez. “People from other countries are really excited to be at them. They can see how great the other countries are and how hard they have to work. The Games show that Colombia is getting stronger in all the sports, especially in archery,” she added.
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