To row in calm waters, María José Mailliard had to paddle in some turbulent ones. From Tokyo 2020, which marked her Olympic debut, to Paris 2024, the Chilean canoeist remains at 33 years old one of her country’s main medal options. To achieve it she set out to raise her level. And excellence has a cost.
In the last Olympic Games, the Chilean athlete fell short of the diploma by finishing in tenth place. An injury and the recent death of her grandmother undermined her options, so she now seeks revenge.
In Tokyo 2020 he set a time of 48 seconds and 19 hundredths in the semifinals of the 200 meters in individual canoe, while at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games he stopped the timers at 46.18. In addition to lowering the record, she faced the world champion, the Cuban Yarisleidis Cirilo, 21 years old, who scored 45.87.
These results are the response to his effort and dedication, but also the consequence of a radical decision he made in 2022, when he settled in the Spanish city of Mallorca, where he works with the Olympic canoe team led by Kiko Martín.
“It has been months of good preparation, of a total change in my training methodology. “It has done me very good, it has borne fruit,” stated Mailliar ahead of the 2023 Pan American Games.
The rower, who has won nine medals at world championships in distances of 500 and 1,000 meters since 2013, has seen her technical, physical and mental evolution. “She is one of the best athletes in the world, without a doubt, and also with many options for a medal in the Olympic Games”said coach Martín in an interview on Channel 13 in Chile.
His most recent world title was in August of last year, a gold in the 1,000 meters in C1 in Duisburg, Germany, where he sealed his ticket to Paris and set a planetary record with a time of 4 minutes, 24 seconds and 958 hundredths, endorsed by the International Canoe Federation.
Her life as an athlete also has an economic cost, which in this Olympic cycle has had the support of the National Sports Institute of Chile (IND), according to Maillard herself.
“If it were not thanks to the IND, which supports my preparation 100 percent, I would not be able to be here,” He said about his stay in Spain in an interview on Chilevisión before qualifying for Paris 2024.
More than bulky figures
The Chilean State has two direct sources of support for athletes: Proddar scholarships and achievement awards. Mailliard, according to public data on the IND website, receives 1.3 million Chilean pesos ($1,400) monthly through the scholarship, and at the end of 2023 he received 32,428,725 Chilean pesos ($34,000) in prizes for his four medals between the World Cup and the Pan American Games.
In addition to the scholarships, there is financing for the preparation of competitors between the IND and the Olympic Plan of the Ministry of Sports, of which Mailliard has said it has been a beneficiary since 2022.
For 2024, the Chilean State budget is 37,713 million pesos (US$ 39.4 million) to support the development of high-performance sports.
According to the publication ‘Sports Culture’ by the academic of the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH) Rodrigo Soto-Lagos, the minimum cost to practice canoeing is 830,000 Chilean pesos (US$ 870) for ropes, clothing, boat and paddle as a one-time purchase.
In general data, depending on the discipline, an athlete may require between US$22,000 and US$55,000 annually for their preparation.
For some of these areas and others such as health and food, Mailliard has the support of sponsors such as Alemana Sport for sports medicine, Adidas, Gatorade, Aramark, Más que fruits or Winkler Nutrition for food and sports supplements.
In addition, she has a scholarship from the University of Chile in Viña del Mar where she is studying to become a coach.
The left-handed canoeist, who had thought about retirement after Tokyo, is now waiting to paddle next August at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium and is even projected to compete in Los Angeles 2028, where the distance will be run for the first time. of 500 meters in which she has been world champion.
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Source: Gestion
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