The last day of rehearsals boating of the South American Games in Asuncion was marked by a controversy, the main protagonist of which was the Chilean Antonia Abraham. The expert rower of the trans-Andean country, double Pan American champion in Lime 2019she was the big favorite to take gold in the women’s singles, but finished third, behind the club Alejandra Alonso and the Brazilian Beatriz Tavares Cardoso. And after the final, played by Club Mbiguá, they filed a formal complaint, which almost forced them to repeat the match.

What happened? As she said Thursday in a post on her her account Instagramshortly after exceeding 1,000 meters, a junk got entangled in his boat and prevented him from maintaining the good pace at which he had started.

“I had won up to a thousand meters with a good difference in altitude, passing in 3’45 and feeling very strong. In the 1,000 the good things had just begun for me, I still had a lot of engine. I got to 1,100 and the boat and more and more and more and more. I see the speed in the shovel bench and it didn’t stop going up and I realized that I was hooked with a rod “, he told and shared a photo of the plant he had dragged.

“I stopped twice to try to get it out and be able to recover what I had lost, but it didn’t work for me. I did the last thousand meters of the race with the garbage and the boat slowed down a lot and I was able to enter third, “she continued.

The Chilean – who had already won two gold medals in the Paraguayan capital, in the categories two long oars without helmsman and four pairs of short oars – completed the regatta with a time of 7: 58.87, behind Alonso (7: 42.33 ) and Tavares (7: 44.66).

The Chilean team then officially filed a complaint with the organization, explaining that her jersey had suffered “with the state of the track that had been assigned to her in the women’s single, a reed entangled in her boat that did not allow her to row normally from 1,000. meters, when I was first “.

After a deliberation process, during which Alonso’s victory was suspended, the judges accepted the request and decided that the three who had reached the podium had to repeat the race. That decision – which generated a lot of criticism on social networks – was challenged by Paraguay before the Organizing Committee, and which led Abraham and his coaches to file a complaint, because they believed that “it would not have been a technical instance to make the final decision.

“Finally, with my team, we decided to leave everything there, get on the podium and receive the bronze medal, because unfortunately there were political problems,” said the Chilean.

“Monday was all golden and today everything has a different color and flavor. It’s incredible. It’s the medal I least imagined I had. It’s not my place or the one I work so hard for,” he added. “Without a doubt this will make me grow as a person and as an athlete and they know that Anto is there for much more.”

Alonso, who got the fourth gold of the host country, regretted what happened. “It’s pretty difficult,” he said. And he assured that the Chilean technician himself made it clear that the protest was not against her or against Paraguay but “for the situation”.