2023-11-04 10:01:40
Last Tuesday, October 31, the name of Santiago Ford signed up with golden letters in the history of national sports. He surprisingly won the gold medal in the decathlon of the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games.
In the total qualifying of the test, Ford accumulated a total of 7,834 pointssurpassing his closest pursuer by almost a hundred units: the Brazilian José Fernando Ferreira (7.748).
The podium was completed by American Ryan Talbotwho finished with 7,742 points in the qualifiers.
After winning the gold medal at the National Stadium, everyone the lights They positioned themselves on the athlete cuban origin. He was born in 1997 and in his career he has managed to compete in important national and international tournaments, participating in Ukraine, the United States and Poland.
“I am happy, because we achieved a dream that I had as a child, we managed to meet the goals that we had prepared for this championship and I am happy because The Chilean people supported me from beginning to end“, he declared after shining in the athletic competition that consists of 10 events.
The hard story of sacrifice of the new Pan American monarch of Team Chile
Ford Romero arrived in national territory end of 2018 and remained until November 2022 with a temporary visa. Prior to that, the life of the brand new Pan American monarch of the decathlon was very uphill.
He left the island and his family five years ago when he considered that did not have the recognition according to their sporting performance. He already had a fourth place in the decathlon at the Under 18 World Athletics Championships in Poland in 2016.
“I got fourth place and it went unnoticed, as if nothing had happened. In Cuba you have to have gold or silver to be recognized and to attract a little attention. If not, you are nobody. It is complicated,” he told Emol last year.
A meeting with a Chilean coach in Cuba ended up being key, as ‘Santi’ packed his bags and decided to try his luck on this long, narrow strip of land.
He took a plane to Guyana and from there he went to Brazil. He crossed the Amazon jungle until he reached Manaus and boarded another plane that would take him to Peru. In it neighboring country came the part more difficult of the journey.
Ford spent a day and a half crossing Peru, dehydrated, hungry and very cold, until he reached the city of Tacna. It seemed that the long journey of more than 6,000 kilometers was coming to an end and the objective was approaching smoothly, but…
The Peruvian police stopped him on a bus and forced him to give him the only 20 dollars he had left in his wallet; If not, they deported him. However, the athlete had 10 dollars hidden in his cell phone case and managed to reach the border with Chile.
His odyssey continued crossing the desert on foot and following the railroad line, continually looking back in case any patrol followed him. Later he realized that he had passed through a minefield.
Upon arriving in Arica, he took a bus to Santiagowhere he had to go through a new story of effort before doing what he is truly passionate about: athletics.
Work guard at a nightclub to survive, but the pandemic and the stoppage of activities ended up affecting his work… That is until he met the coach Matias Barrera.
‘Santi’ began to train thoroughly and in 2021 he shone in the National Athletics, specifically in the triple jump. A triumph that allowed him to gain greater recognition and thus qualify for the Chilean citizenship.
Even the then Minister of Sports, Cecilia Pérezhelped him so that he could stay in the High Performance Center.
Finally, on November 30, 2022, the Chamber of Deputies granted him the Chilean nationality by grace.
Of course, recognition did not come overnight either. The decathlete assured that important brands They did not want to sponsor him, arguing at that time that he did not have a large number of followers on his social networks.
He did not fail the country that allowed him to resume his dream: Ford blows up the National and thanks with tears in his eyes
After resuming his dream, Santiago Ford did not fail the country that welcomed him. With a fantastic performance, the 26-year-old athlete was crowned the best of the decathlon in Santiago 2023.
He gave our country the seventh gold at the XIX Pan American Games. It was an unexpected first place, since despite the tremendous performance of the national athlete, his victory It was not in the forecasts.
Once his victory was confirmed, Ford let himself be carried away by emotion and shed some tears on the track of the National Stadium. His happiness was accompanied by the applause of the more than 20,000 spectators present at the Ñuñoa venue.
After his great victory, he recalled the hardships that happened: “I stopped (at the end of the 1,500 meters), it was not because I wanted to stop, but because I remembered when I was walking through the desert at half past five in the morning standing there not knowing what to do.but with the clear objective that was to get here.”
“And those last 10 meters were that reflection of the early morning, dehydrated, but in my heart and in my mind I knew that I wanted to be hereat this moment,” he added.
And not only that, Ford was sincere and grateful. “I think I’ve come to a place where everyone loves me, that everyone loves me. Maybe at first it wasn’t what you thought, but we never lost hope,” she said.
“I want to thank Senator Sebastian Keitel and the deputy Erika Oliverawho were the ones who promoted the nationality project so that today we would be here defending the colors of Chile,” he stated.
He made his life in Chile, got married and has a child who is about to turn one year old. Remarkable story of effort.
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