Tag Archives: IOC

Mariana Pajón Among 32 Athletes Running for IOC Athletes’ Commission Elections in Paris

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Mariana Pajón is hoping to represent her fellow athletes…

The 32-year-old Colombian cyclist, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and BMX World Champion, is a candidate in elections at the 2024 Paris Games to represent their fellow athletes at the IOC.Mariana PajónThe International Olympic Committee announced the list of 32 candidates this week for elections to be held during the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris from July 26-August 11, when about 10,500 athletes are eligible to vote.

After being the flag-bearer for Colombia during the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Games, Pajón’s first participation in the BMX event resulted in the first gold medal for Colombia during the 2012 games and the second overall in Colombia’s participation in the Olympics.

In the 2016 Rio Games Pajón defended her title and won her second Olympic gold medal and fifth overall for Colombia. With this victory, Pajón became the first Colombian athlete to win two gold medals.

In the 2020 Tokyo Games, Pajón won silver.

But Pajon isn’t the only Latinx athlete in the running…

Kahena Kunze, a 32-year-old Brazilian Olympic sailor, is also a candidate. Together with Martine Grael she won the 49er FX class at the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships and a gold medal in the inaugural 49er FX race, during the 2016 Rio Games, a feat both repeated at 2020 Tokyo Games.

Other Latinx candidates include Salvadoran sailor Enrique Arathoon, who competed at the 2016 Rio Games and 2020 Tokyo Games; Mexican pentathlon athlete Emiliano Hernandez Uscanga; Puerto Rican judoka Melissa Mojica Rosario, who competed at the 2012 London Games, 2016 Rio Games and 2020 Tokyo Games; and Argentine judoka Paula Belén Pareto, who won a gold medal at the 2016 Rio Games.

Four positions are up for election.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn Claims Gold in Women’s 100-Meter Hurdles at Tokyo Games

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2020 Tokyo Games

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn has passed a major hurdle and earned a place in Puerto Rican sports history.

The 24-year-old Puerto Rican track and field athlete raced to gold in the women’s 100-meter hurdles race on Monday morning at the 2020 Tokyo Games, giving Puerto Rico its first medal of this Olympics.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn

Camacho-Quinn won coveted medal, just the second gold medal in Puerto Rican history, clocking in at 12.37 seconds. In a photo finish for the second and third place spots, American Keni Harrison claimed silver in 12.52 seconds and Jamaica’s Megan Tapper took home the bronze in 12.55.

“It really means a lot. This year I trained really hard; I don’t have a training partner, I’m by myself, so every time I stepped out there I gave it all I had,” Camacho-Quinn said. “This was what I wanted for this year, I wanted to be a gold medalist, and I manifested that. I spoke it into existence.”

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn

 

In 2016, Camacho-Quinn was a 19-year-old University of Kentucky student coming off an NCAA championship when she came to her first Olympics.

She fell in her semifinal, her trail leg clipping the top of the eighth of the 10 hurdles, and she couldn’t regain her form before the ninth, stumbling and falling to the track.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn

The daughter of a father born in South Carolina and a mother born in Puerto Rico, Camacho-Quinn chose to represent her mother’s island; even though Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, the IOC recognizes it as its own country for the purposes of Olympic competition and laws. Tennis player Monica Puig won Puerto Rico’s first gold medal in 2016.

Asked how long that Rio stumble stayed with her, Camacho-Quinn said it’s basically been inescapable over the last five years.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn

“I’m constantly reminded; somebody’s always messaging me and like, ‘Oh I’m sorry for what happened’ and I’m like I need y’all to let that go, please,” she said, laughing. “I need y’all to let it go.

“But yesterday before semis I kind of had a breakdown because I don’t want the same thing to happen again, but I knew how I’d been racing all season, just do that and I’ll be OK.”

She may have allowed that memory to cause her momentary pause, but clearly it didn’t linger: Camacho-Quinn set an Olympic record in the semis on Sunday, running 12.26. It ties her for the fourth-fastest performance of all time.

Camacho-Quinn, whose older brother Robert currently plays for the Chicago Bears, had the three fastest times in the world this season coming into Tokyo, which gave her confidence for the Games.

“This year, when I opened up and seeing where I was” — she ran 12.47 seconds in her opener on April 10 and 12.32 a week later — “I was like, wow, I might have a really fast year this year. From that moment I’m like, ‘OK I know what I can do, and let’s work towards that’,” she said.

Samaranch Honored with Memorial Museum in China

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Juan Antonio Samaranch is being honored with an Olympic-size memorial in Asia…

The late Spanish sports administrator, who served as the seventh president of the International Olympic Committee, has been feted with a memorial museum in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin.

Juan Antonio Samaranch

The museum, which was inaugurated on Sunday, pays tribute to Samaranch, who served the second longest term as the head of the IOC during his career.

Samaranch is undoubtedly the most famous and beloved Spaniard in China – the country’s citizens feel that his support was vital in organizing the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing – and now China is devoting to him what could be considered its largest and most ambitious museum in honor of a foreigner.

Samaranch, who died three years ago at the age of 89, was “a visionary who strengthened and united the Olympic movement,” as well as “a friend … (who) left a great legacy that will be preserved for perpetuity,” said Jacques Rogge, the current president of the IOC.

The building, with a floor plan in the shape of a ring and a design that was contributed to by one of Samaranch’s granddaughters, architect Ana Gras, was the initiative of Taiwan’s representative to the IOC, Wu Ching-Kuo, the president of the International Boxing Association.

The museum displays 16,000 of Samaranch’s personal items, from medals and trophies he won as a young man in different sports to a reproduction of his IOC office, furniture from his home, sports clothing belonging to him, pictures and photographs of him with his family and even bottles of cologne that he used during his life.