Latin America finished Beijing 2022 with modest results and a slight improvement over Pyeongchang 2018

Latin America arrived at the Olympic Games in Beijing-2022 with very modest objectives and the forecasts were fulfilled.

Far from Olympic medals and diplomas, the best results were achieved by Brazilian Nicole Silveira, with her thirteenth place in skeleton, and Chilean Dominique Ohaco with her sixteenth place in big air freestyle skiing.

If you look at the results of Pyeongchang-2018, where the best position was a nineteenth place of the Chilean Stephanie Joffroy in ski cross, it can be considered that there was a slight improvement.

But everything is relative since in South Korea, four years ago, four Latin Americans were placed in the Top 20 and this time there have been three.

Three in the Top 20

In addition to Nicole Silveira and Dominique Ohaco, the other Latin American to enter the Top 20 was the four-man bobsleigh team, with its veteran driver Edson Bindilatti, who in his fifth participation in the Games achieved the best result with twentieth place, qualifying for the final sleeve.

Silveira and Bindilatti had the best performance among the ten Brazilian athletes, where cross-country skier Jaqueline Mourao participated in her eighth Olympic Games (five summer and three winter).

In Chile, in addition to the result of Ohaco, among its four participants, Henrik Von Appen’s 27th place in the super-giant alpine skiing stood out.

Among the six selected from the Argentine delegation, Verónica Ravenna achieved 24th place in luge, the best albiceleste position, although in the king sport, alpine skiing, Francesca Baruzzi achieved a meritorious result at 23 years old, being 29th in giant and supergiant .

“I am very happy with my results in the games, I feel that I still have much more to improve and grow within the sport”, Baruzzi tells AFP.

“I think that winter sports are growing little by little in Argentina but they lack the support that the big countries have, more than anything for the youngest children. There is a lack of motivation and support for them to aspire to be high performance athletes in snow sports. What in Argentina only happens with soccer, transfer it to other sports“, Add.

After this first Olympic experience, he hopes to find his best moment at the next Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Games in 2026.

“I think that at that time I will be at my peak of performance and it will be a good place to make results that further promote winter sports in Argentina.”, he concludes.

Among the three Colombian participants, the twenty-second place of speed skater Laura Gómez in Mass Start stood out, while Michael Poettoz was 31st in giant and cross-country skier Carlos Quintana achieved a modest 95th place in 15 km and 88th in sprint.

In Mexico, the most important thing was Donovan Carrillo’s 22nd place in figure skating, in the first participation of a representative from the Aztec country in the specialty.

His performance and his story, beginning in difficult circumstances to practice this sport in Mexico, had a lot of echo in his country.

Flaherty, an example of overcoming

In the rest of the countries, with symbolic representation, such as Bolivia and Puerto Rico, with two representatives each, Peru and Ecuador, with one, the Puerto Rican results stood out, yes, with two athletes born in the United States.

In this way, Kellie Delka was 24th in skeleton, but above all she highlighted the case of William Flaherty, just 17 years old, who has suffered from cancer since he was three and overcame all possible obstacles to be in the Games.

Flaherty, whose brother Charles participated in the 2018 Games and had donated his marrow to him in his fight against cancer when they were children, in an example of improvement he was 44th in slalom and 40th in giant.

“I kept fighting and going forward to fulfill my Olympic dream and I did it. Everything is achieved with determination, you have to keep going, no matter what you find and you can fulfill your dreams”, William Flaherty told AFP after his participation.

Latin America also still needs a lot of determination and fight so that winter sports take hold and one day an Olympic medal or diploma is achieved.

At the moment, in the absence of medals, Argentina, with a fourth place (in bobsleigh, in Saint Moritz-1928), Brazil with a ninth (Isabel Clark, in snowboard cross, in Turin-2006) and Chile, with an eleventh.