Jefferson Perez opened in 1996 a path that had previously been impossible for Ecuador: to obtain an Olympic medal for the country. Although officially he had a gold medal (1996) and a silver medal (2008), in reality it should have been two gold medals, since it was proven that the athlete who won the gold medal when he won the silver one had doped.
Richard Carapaz, Neisi Dajomes and Tamara Salazar returned the joy in Tokyo 2020 after two Olympics, London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016, where Ecuador was not present in the medal standings.
At the time of writing this article, Ecuador has already accumulated five medals (one gold, two silver and two bronze) in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games: two by Daniel Pintado, one of them together with Glenda Morejón, one by Lucía Yépez, one by Angie Palacios and one by Neisi Dajomes.
The merit of these sports heroes is enormous. Without state support, many of them with a childhood full of shortages, without any facility for the practice of their activities, they were carving the road to glory based on effort, discipline, dedication and the conviction that you have to do things right.
These excellent athletes who have bathed our Ecuador in gold, silver and bronze are precisely the opposite of the general attitude of the country.
The Ecuadorian people, deceived by populism, demagogy and lies, want everything for free, everything with subsidies, that they not be taxed, and that the State make all the investments that are needed.
With that attitude, our glorious athletes would not have won even a paper medal. The story of each one of them should be compulsorily read in schools, so that children learn that nothing is easy, that to get ahead as a country the road is long, that there are no magic solutions and that only a permanent, constant and always adhering to a plan, a preconceived route, and technical criteria in each sport, you can reach the goal, and hear the national anthem, and see the flag of Ecuador hoisted on the Olympic podiums.
None of these athletes had luxuries in their childhood, none of them had a car with a driver to take them to training, none of them had economic prizes or subsidies. They only had the grit, the inner strength, the motivation and the ambition to fulfill a dream.
Medal-earned glory and injustice
That should be the attitude of the student, the worker, the businessman, the teacher, the priest, the politician, the public servant, the artist, the doctor, every professional, every artisan, every worker; to do one's duty, doing things well, so that Ecuador may be greater, and may someday emerge from the economic and social prostration that overwhelms us.
Let us not applaud them, let us not rejoice if we are not willing to imitate their attitude and sacrifice in our daily lives.
Lucía Yépez gives the country a positive headline
Ecuadorians must always remember that life rewards efforts, not excuses, and that the latter have a privileged place in our behavior and way of being. (O)
Source: eluniverse.com
