Tag Archives: Erick Barrondo

Adriana Ruano Wins Women’s Trap Event at the 2024 Paris Games to Give Guatemala Its First-Ever Olympic Gold

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2024 Paris GamesAdriana Ruano is celebrating a golden first for her country…

The 29-year-old Guatemalan former-gymnast-turned-sports-shooter, who’s chances of competing at the Olympics as a gymnast ended with a spinal injury, set a new Olympic record in the women’s trap event at the 2024 Paris Games on Wednesday, giving Guatemala it’s first-ever Olympic gold medal.

Adriana RuanoRuano was training for the 2011 world championships in gymnastics, a qualifier for the 2012 London Games the following year, when she felt pain in her back.

Scans showed she had six damaged vertebrae — a career-ending injury at age 16 — and she spent a year recovering, wearing a brace.

Ruano’s doctor recommended she take up shooting if she wanted to stay in sports without aggravating her injured back.

“When I had my injury, I didn’t have anything. I started to get desperate, and I was frustrated. Then the door opened for me with this sport,” Ruano said.

Adriana RuanoMore than a decade after Ruano swapped the balance beam and vault for a shotgun, her doctor’s advice paid off at the 2024 Summer Games when she won the women’s trap with an Olympic-record score of 45 out of 50.

Ruano closed her eyes and took a deep breath before hitting her 43rd target to make sure Italian silver medalist Silvana Stanco couldn’t catch her for the gold. She missed her next two shots after that, but it didn’t matter.

It was a stint volunteering at the 2016 Rio Games that put her on the path back to elite-level sports.

“I said to myself, ‘If I can’t be there as an athlete, maybe I can be there as a volunteer’, so I applied,” she said. “They put me on shooting, and I was able to watch my teammates. I could see the competition, and that was the moment that inspired me to think, ‘OK, maybe if not in gymnastics, I can do it in shooting.’”

Ruano placed 26th at the 2020 Tokyo Games, shortly after her father had died.

Coming into Paris, though, she was the defending Pan American Games champion.

Now she has given her country an Olympic gold medal, a day after Jean Pierre Brol won bronze in the men’s trap to claim Guatemala’s first Olympic medal since race walker Erick Barrondo’s silver at the 2012 London Games.

Stanco won the silver on 40 and Australia’s Penny Smith took the bronze.

Barrondo: From Olympic Medalist to Guatemalan Knight

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It’s a knight’s tale for Erick Barrondo following his medal-winning performance at the 2012 Olympic Games…

The 21-year-old Guatemalan racewalker—who finished second in the men’s 20km race walk at the London Games—will become a Knight of the Order of the Sovereign Congress.

Erick Barrondo

Guatemalan lawmakers unanimously approved the decoration for Barrondo for giving his country its first-ever Olympic medal.

In addition, the 116 members present at the session voted to award Barrondo $64,000 for stellar performance.

“If in England there is a Sir Alex Ferguson (manager of top soccer club Manchester United), why in Guatemala can’t there be a Knight Erick Barrondo,” said legislator Haroldo Quej as he explained why he voted in favor of the honor.

Erick Barrondo

President Otto Perez Molina met Tuesday with Dora and Bernardo Barrondo, parents of the athlete, who’ll compete next Saturday in the 50km walk, to coordinate the details of the trip to London that the government will provide then so they can cheer on their son.

“They are being given the trip to accompany Erick and give him the warmth and support he needs for the race,” a spokesperson for the president’s office told Efe.

“He’s going to be welcomed as a hero, as he deserves. We’re going to be waiting for him with open arms,” Perez Molina said after Barrondo’s medal-winning performance in the 20km event.

Barrondo Wins Guatemala’s First-Ever Medal at the London Games

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London Olympics 2012

He may have just missed winning a gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games, but Erick Barrondo’s name will still be forever etched in Guatemala’s history books.

The 21-year-old Guatemalan racewalker finished second in the men’s 20km race walk at the London Games on Saturday, giving his country its first-ever Olympic medal.

Erick Barrondo

Following his race, Barrondo—whose parents were both middle distance runners—broke away from journalists’ questions to take a call from Guatemala’s president, Otto Perez Molina.

“The president congratulated me on the first Olympic medal for the country. He told me that everyone had come out on the streets to celebrate the triumph,” said Barrondo, who finished 11 seconds behind China’s Chen Ding. “It was a glorious day for me, but the glory is most of all for my country.”

Erick Barrondo

In a day of firsts in London the race was won by Chen, who together with his third placed compatriot Wang Zhen were the first Chinese men to win an Olympic medal in a race walking event.

Barrondo, who finished 10th in last year’s 20km race walk final at the world championships in Daegu, worked hard to stay in contention among a Chinese and Russian dominated leading pack before breaking away to split China’s duo on the final stretch.