On the fourth day of competitions at the Special Olympics World Games, which are held in Berlin, Germany, the Costa Rican delegation was filled with medals.Costa Rican athletes achieved 13 medals in different disciplines, which were added to the three that had previously been achieved.
Swimming appeared on the scene with its first finals on German soil. Gretel Siles was the first to get on the podium and won the gold medal in the 50-meter breaststroke (level B) with a time of 1:27’46”, thus surpassing other rivals in the world.“I am happy with this medal, very hard, but I did it. Thank you for your support,” Siles said after the award ceremony.
The medals in the water didn’t stop there; María Fernanda Solano reached silver in the 400-meter freestyle level B with a time of 9:17’01”. The gold went to Ecuador.”I am happy for the support of my family, niece, cousins, two sisters, thank you all, a lot of effort and dedication to obtain this medal,” said Solano.
In addition to swimming, once again rhythmic gymnastics raised the Costa Rican flag: Viviana Rodríguez, in division 1.4.1 obtained silver in clubs, bronze in hoop, bronze in rope and bronze in ribbon; while her partner, Marypaula Cervantes, in the 2.3.2 division, won silver in hoop, gold in rope, gold in ribbon and bronze in clubs.The day closed in this discipline, AylinMarín with silver in the 4.1 All Around division.
More podiums
Cycling entered the action and Costa Rica also climbed to the podium with Erick Cordero, bronze medalist, in the 15 km road. Likewise, athletics had a day with the following results for our country: Yuliana Valerio silver medal in 200 meters flat, Mark Gómez fourth in 400 and José Ramírez fifth in 200.
On Monday, the athletes, Juliana Dormond and Adriana Sotela, achieved bronze in the 1500-meter open water unified category.The time they did was 25:38. The silver medal went to Germany and the gold to Mexico. The difference between the ticas and the first place was 20 seconds.
“We had already swum in the preliminary, we saw the level that each team had, our intention was to be among the first three and that was the case. The strategy was always to be very close to the German duo who were quite strong and we managed to keep the rhythm”, commented Dormond, unified athlete.
“I gave everything for Costa Rica, there were many hours of training, the exercises I worked on helped me a lot and also thanks to the work of my partner,” said Sotela, who is an athlete in the Special Olympics Program.
