It has been 28 years since Mexican representation in artistic swimming teams, a sport so refined that it demands excellence in excellence. The nine Mexicans, led by Nuria Diosdado, have made a qualitative leap in Paris 2024 by finishing in seventh place in the grand final. They were the only representatives from Latin America and that is where their great merit lies, by qualifying for the final round after three years of chaos and uncertainty caused by Ana Guevara, the sport’s top commissioner.
The Mexican team was made up of Joana Jiménez, Pamela Toscano, Regina Alférez, Fernanda Arellano, Itzamary González, Jessica Sobrino, Samantha Rodríguez, Glenda Izunza and Nuria Diosdado. The latter has competed in four Games and is one of the most decorated Mexican swimmers in history with 37 medals. The Olympic podium, however, has eluded her. The women’s squad secured the Olympic ticket to Paris after a great process (2021-2024), something that Mexico had not seen since Atlanta 1996, when they finished eighth in the world.
In Paris, the swimmers dazzled from the first day. In the tough technical routine they opted for a high difficulty and to the tune of Queen as We will rock you o Don’t stop me now, melodies that have accompanied them over the past three years, when they have won gold medals at the world championships in Egypt and Paris. That ranking brought them to eighth place. A hard blow to the Mexicans’ hopes. The revenge occurred on Tuesday when their free routine was the third best rated by the judges and helped them climb some positions thanks to their graceful movements and a costume in honor of the monarch butterflies.
This Wednesday, already in the acrobatic routine, the Mexicans wanted to finish with a bang. The Aquatic Center was filled with applause and cheers for the Mexicans who once again demonstrated their quality in the water with a total score of 853.7932 points. Mexico left Italy, Australia and Egypt behind. Gold went to China, silver to the United States and bronze to Spain.
All Mexican aquatic athletes shared the same discontent: they were left without sports scholarships that, by law, the Government must grant. After Tokyo 2020, everything exploded in the Mexican Swimming Federation when its president, Kiril Todorov, was accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of embezzling more than 150 million pesos. That caused the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sport (Conade) to extinguish the federation, without taking into account that the future of swimmers and divers would be left in limbo. The international organization, World Aquatics, intervened in favor of the athletes to set up a stabilizing committee that was chaired by the president of the Mexican Olympic Committee, Mary José Alcalá. That did not please Commissioner Ana Guevara who has insisted until exhaustion that the Mexican Government could not grant resources to a private entity, in this case the stabilizing committee, because it was a private and foreign entity. That administrative paralysis took its toll.
The artistic swimming competitors needed to travel abroad to test their talent, to show off and win the Olympic ticket. They decided to sell high-quality towels and bathing suits to cover their expenses. Some decided to sell kitchen containers, others sought support from businessmen, such as Carlos Slim, who financed the flights to Egypt, where the Mexicans won an unprecedented gold. It is also true that Diosdado, Jiménez, Rodríguez, Toscano, Arellano, González, Alférez and Sobrino had an extra resource by representing the Mexican Armed Forces, a place they earned on their own merits and that has nothing to do with Conade.
Months before the Olympic Games, the Mexican swimmers won an injunction against the Conade so that a judge would order the return of their sports scholarships. Ana Guevara, already in Paris, said that “except for the aquatics, today we do not have any note, any statement of ‘I needed a tour, I needed training, I don’t bring equipment, I don’t have a disciplinary team’. We don’t have any scene of that.” Guevara called the Mexicans “debtors” and that it was all the same to her if they “sold tupperware or underwear.”
The Mexicans, who wanted to avoid the controversy with Guevara, have responded with a great performance in the world’s pool, under the gaze of the best.
Sign up for the free EL PAÍS Mexico newsletter and to WhatsApp channel and receive all the latest news on current events in this country.
