A look full of tenderness, muscles like a bull. Alexa Moreno undergoes a metamorphosis every time she sets foot on the mat. Shy in public, focused before competing and unbridled when she runs at full power to jump on the springboard. She takes the applause to advance like an elegant missile and finish standing, with strength and balance. At 29 years old, she is by numbers and achievements the best Mexican gymnast of all time. Therefore, she reaches the height of idolatry for Mexicans.
The common denominator of the great sports idols in Mexico is empathy, the connection of roots with their own. The country spoils its athletes who come from nothing, who achieve impossible triumphs. Thus, Hugo Sánchez, Soraya Jiménez, Julio César Chávez, María del Rosario Espinoza or Checo Pérez managed to stand out. Alexa Moreno (Mexicali, 29 years old) joins this group of recognized people. The Mexican began in gymnastics at the age of three when her parents enrolled her in a school in the north of the country. In her childhood there were no references of Mexican gymnasts in the elite to follow in her footsteps. It was not until she was six years old that the country saw how Denisse López entered a vault final. The also born in Mexicali lit the way for Alexa Moreno.
In 2010, Alexa Moreno began competing on the international scene. A year later, she competed in her first world gymnastics tournament, where she placed seventh. Not bad for a rookie. In 2012, she again surprised everyone by winning a silver medal at a tournament held in Zibo, China. That same year, she won first place in the vault event at a tournament held in Ghent, Belgium. Her rise led to the first test that would put her in the media spotlight: the 2016 Rio Olympics. Her great mentor was the Spaniard Alfredo Hueto, who supported the project of bringing the Mexican to the table of the greats of the sport.
There is never bad publicity
In Brazil, things were not going so well for Mexico when Alexa Moreno was competing. The medal harvest was scarce and when it was the turn of artistic gymnastics, something happened that tarnished Mexican sport: social networks were inflamed with criticism of her build and physical appearance because, according to thousands of comments, she did not meet the canons of beauty in gymnastics. Moreno was unable to dazzle due to an injury that plagued her and finished in 31st place in the competition. all-around. But that’s where the connection with thousands of Mexicans began. “It was a shock. At first it was difficult to have so much attention. There is no such thing as bad publicity,” she told this newspaper a few years ago. And, indeed, there was no bad publicity. Alexa Moreno’s name resonated and that helped her take the leap of her life.
In Doha, Alexa Moreno became the first Mexican to win a medal at the World Gymnastics Championships, a bronze in the vault. The image is immortalized: she dressed in a purple leotard next to multi-medalist Simone Biles. That 2018 catapulted her to win the National Sports Award and to be an ideal magnet for brands. The Covid-19 pandemic hampered her good moment. The gyms closed, there was uncertainty about whether or not the Olympic Games would be held in Tokyo. The Mexican only aspired to be sixth in the world in the vault, as she confessed to the media after the competition, but she managed to get into the final first and then be fourth. She was thousandths of a second away from winning the bronze medal. “We gave everything we could, it wasn’t up to me, I think I did an excellent job, I feel very satisfied with my participation,” she said.
Alexa Moreno already knows what glory is
Paris 2024 seemed like a difficult summit to climb. First of all, she had to undergo surgery to maintain her ankles and recover from shoulder discomfort. She spent the whole of 2022 without competing, afraid of making any surgical procedure worse and with doubts about whether she could make it to the Olympic Games. As soon as she put down her crutches, she put herself under the orders of Maricarmen Valenzuela, a coach who took her to prepare in the United States, in the same gym where Simone Biles did pirouettes, in Texas.
2023 was a comeback in absolute performance for Alexa Moreno. She took glory at the Pan American Camp, and won five medals, including two golds, at the Central American and Caribbean Games. At the World Cup in Paris, she made a splash by winning another gold medal. In October, she competed at the World Championships held in Belgium, although she was one place short of the podium. And, at the beginning of June, she won gold again at another international competition held in Slovenia.
Mattel’s iconic Barbie brand invited Alexa Moreno to be part of one of its special dolls to celebrate diversity and the company’s 65th anniversary. In recent months, she has accumulated key sponsors to travel smoothly to Tokyo. Life after Alexa Moreno can exist because she has been joined by another Mexican promise called Natalia Escalera, 22 years old. The problem is that Mexico is still developing in terms of gymnastics. Shortly after Tokyo, Moreno criticized the lack of public infrastructure in her country: “It’s not that we need more Alexas Moreno, but that we need better gymnasts than Alexa Moreno.”
“I want to enjoy this competition (in Paris) much more because I have perceived more maturity as an athlete, I have assimilated the experience in the sport much better and that helps me to face the competitions. There are times when there are doubts, but when I am in the area, I have known how to handle them very well,” Moreno told Conade at the beginning of the year. Moreno only wants to make herself happy, she wants to evade the expectations around her, although her talent ends up enlarging them by nature. She wants to reach 30 years of age, on August 8, with the gift of surpassing herself in front of the best in the world, including the one she sees in her mirror.
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.
