Iberoamerican Athletics: why Argentina has reasons to dream of medals

The province of Alicante, located in southeastern Spain, will receive this weekend the 19th edition of Iberoamerican Athletics Championship, which will bring together 461 athletes from 25 countries in La Nucía, where the track and field event will be held, and Torrevieja, which will host the half marathon event. Among those nearly half a thousand athletes there are 25 Argentines, members of a delegation that mixes young talent and others more experienced, some with a concrete chance to land on the podium.

Germán Chiaraviglio, four-time Ibero-American pole vault champion in Ponce 2006, will lead the light blue and white team with 5.70 meters (event record), Barquisimeto 2012, San Pablo 2014 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 35 year-old, winner in addition to a silver in Trujillo 2018 and a bronze in Huelva 2004, just captured his 15th Argentina title, on April 9 in Concepción del Uruguay, in a jump of 5.30 meters.

Finalist in Beijing World Cup 2015 and at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Chiaraviglio’s personal best was 5.75 meters where he won silver in Toronto Pan American Games 2015. He was one of the candidates to hang a medal at La Nucía.

“The special thing about this championship is to be able to share with many colleagues, not only from South America, but also with Europeans, who have similar backgrounds. About”, commented santafesino in the preview of his seventh Ibero -American.

Frederick Bruno He will start as the favorite to climb the podium in the 1,500 meters. The 28-year-old from Entre Ríos also won the Nacional de Concepción title -the fourth for him- with a 3m38s52 and came in with a still new record of having a new Argentine record in Castellón, Spain, in June last year, with 3m36s18. . He is also second fastest in 2022 among Ibero-American athletes, with 3m37s88, behind the Spaniards mario garcia (3m36s91).

Belén Casetta (27) will face her second title -and her third medal- at 3,000 with hurdles, after gold in Rio 2016 and bronze in Trujillo 2018. And she has reasons to be excited about achieving it. At the Argentine Championship of Concepción, the woman from Mar del Plata won with 9m38s15, the best time of the season for Latin America and her best personal best in five years. He just ran that distance faster than London World Cup 2017where he recorded 9m35s78 in the classification and 9m25s99 in the final, current Argentine and South American records.

In the women’s half marathon event, which will run in Torrevieja, two Argentines will start with the candidates: Florencia Borelli and Diana Ocampo.

The marplatense (29), winner of the Buenos Aires Marathon in October, is having a great season. In February, he broke the national marathon record in Seville, where he recorded 2m26s54 and also achieved the lowest mark for Eugene’s world, United States, to be played in July. And more than a month ago, in a tournament in Mar del Plata, he became the first Argentine to lose 9 minutes in the 3,000 meter dash, by stopping the clock at 8: 59.10 and beating a South American record of 28 years already. old.

Meanwhile, Ocampo set a new national record at 10 thousand meters, with 32m33s99 in a tournament held on May 14 at Buenos Aires Olympic Park.

Borelli and Ocampo are also owners of the best historical seasons in Argentina at 21 Kilometers, with 1:10:30 and 1:11:50, respectively.

Joaquin Gomez He is another of the Argentines with a podium projection in Ibero-American. In his third participation in this event (he was fifth in Rio 2016 and silver in Trujillo 2018), he will go for a hammer throw medal. The 25-year-old from Buenos Aires has the best record of 76.36 meters –the Argentine’s second best mark- which he achieved in October in Buenos Aires. This year, he threw 74.13 meters in Concepción South American Grand Prix of Uruguay and in early May he won a tournament in Nerja, Spain, with 71.49 meters.

It will also be worthwhile to keep a close eye on the presentations of Miguel Barzolaa history of Argentine athletics, having just finished 29m42 in the Spanish 10 Kilometers Championship and in 40 years will run the half marathon in Torrevieja; Franco Florio, three -time Argentine champion in the 100 meters -2019, 2020 (with 10s24) and 2022-, which days after 22 will try to return the Argentine flag to the final of the hectometer; Y Carlos Layoyin the high jump, the only delegation to defend the title won four years ago.

The rest of the delegation was completed Phaedra Moon (1,500 and 5,000 meters), Caroline Lozano Y Joaquin Arbe (3,000 with barriers), Mariana Borelli Y Jose Zabala (1,500), Martina Escudero Y Diego Lacamore (800), Micaela Levaggi at Ignatius Treasury (5,000), Florence Lamboglia (100 and 200), Julian Molina (3,000 with barriers and 5,000), Maximilian Diaz (Triple jump), Ignatius Carballo (shot put), John Manuel Cano (10,000 March), Antonio Poblete (half marathon) at Elian Larregina (400).

History of Argentina in the Iberoamerican

Argentine athletics has a rich history in the Ibero-American Championship, being born in the early 1960s and then having a break, and reappearing on the calendar in 1983.

Our country won the medal table in the first two editions, Santiago de Chile 1960 and Madrid 1962, with eight gold medals in each of those events. The great figure of those, at the time, the Ibero-American Games was Osvaldo Suarez, champion in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters and in the marathon on Chilean soil and in the first two trials also in Spain. Wilde-born remains Argentina’s top gold medalist in the event.

This weekend, Germán Chiaraviglio could match that victory. The Santa Fe native, a pole vault specialist, is one of four national athletes to win four titles, including three who have retired: Germán Lauro (two on discus and two on shot), John Ignatius Cerra and Jennifer Dahlgren (both on the hammer throw).

Since the tournament was re-played, in 1983, which was already under the name of the Ibero-American Championship, Argentina has never won the medal table again. He went to the podium three times, always on the third step, inward Manaus 1990 (two gold, three silver and three bronze), Iquique 2008 (4-7-6) at Rio de Janeiro 2016 (4-4-3).

Sa Trujillo 2018the last edition held (2020 in Tenerife was canceled due to the pandemic), finished fifth, with three gold, four silver and five bronze medals, behind Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Peru, the host.

In the historical medal table, led by Brazil with 169 golds, 170 silvers and 153 bronzes, it was sixth with 35-37-55, also surpassed by Cuba, Spain, Colombia and Mexico.

Seven Olympic medalists and several special guests

Among the 461 athletes who will compete this weekend at the Ibero-American in Alicante are seven medalists from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: Dominican Marileidy Paulino (runner-up in the 400 meters), Cubans Maykel Massó (bronze in the long jump) and Yaimé Pérez (bronze discus) and the Dominican 4 × 400 mixed relay, silver in the Japanese capital, consisting of Paulino, Lidio Feliz, Anabel Medina, Alexander Ogando and Luguelín Santos.

Two champions of the Indoor World Cup held in March in Belgrade were also present, the Cuban Lázaro Martínez (triple jump) and the Brazilian Darlan Romani (shot put, with a record in South America).

In addition, among the participants will be three Ukrainian athletes, who are part of a group of 18 received by the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation and located in La Nucía, after the invasion of their country by the Russian army. They are Dmytro Zuiev (high jump), Anastasiia Bryzgina (200 meters) and Kateryna Tabashnyk (high jump).