SPORT PERU 2020
Lima, Dec 17 (EFE) .- Badminton offered Peru the greatest sporting joy of this fatal and pandemic 2020 by proclaiming itself at home as South American champion in the recent continental tournament held in Lima from December 5 to 13.
The Peruvian team prevailed ahead of their peers from Argentina, Colombia and Bolivia in the championship held at the Villa Deportiva Nacional (Videna) in the Peruvian capital.
The host team had an impeccable performance in this tournament by not conceding a single game to their rivals, whom they defeated 5-0 in all three cases.
The decisive point that established Peru as South American badminton champion was in charge of Inés Castillo in her match against Argentina’s Ailén Oliva.
Daniel La Torre also contributed to this success in the men’s individual; Diego Mini and José Guevara in the men’s doubles, Danica Nishimura and Daniela Macías in the women’s doubles and José Guevara and Paula La Torre in mixed doubles.
Up to 68 medals were hung by Peruvian players in the different categories of this tournament, including eight gold, ten silver and eleven bronze in the youth modalities.
This South American badminton event was one of the various international sporting events that at the beginning of the year were scheduled to be held at the same facilities as the Lima 2019 Pan American Games.
But several of them were affected.
Others came to be disputed even in a virtual way and consolidated Lima as one of the sports capitals of Latin America with championships that also served the Peruvian sport to show its face.
This was the case, for example, with the Pan-American Judo Open, where Peruvians obtained 13 medals: 5 golds, 3 silvers and 5 bronzes, or the U-17 World Championship of weightlifting, with 14 medals for Peru, of which three were awarded. position of Estrella Saldarriaga.
Very few Peruvian athletes have been able to compete in 2020.
Most of them have spent a good part of the year without even being able to train properly.
This is the case of many Olympic athletes and the players of the national league of women’s volleyball, the second national sport after men’s soccer, whose league was the only tournament that was retaken even in the middle of confinement.
The same did not happen with the women’s soccer league, a discipline considered a fan by the Peruvian Soccer Federation (FPF), so the players still train individually on their own in municipal parks.
Fernando Gimeno
