Judoka Ian Ignacio Sancho became the eleventh Costa Rican athlete to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games after winning the ninth among 10 continental places for men in America.
Officially, the judoka Ian Ignacio Sancho Chinchilla became the eleventh athlete member of the Costa Rican Olympic delegation that will be present at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, after counting the points of the Budapest World Cup in Hungary, and not having and more events before the close of the Olympic ranking on June 28.
The largest of three judoka brothers (there are also Julián, his last rival for this place; and the youngest, Sebastián; who was just making his international debut at the Guayaquil Open to which the other two went), obtained this achievement through the continental place awarded by the International Judo Federation to the best or the best judoka of countries without athletes classified by ranking in a specific category, since he achieved the ninth position among 10 Pan-American men credited with this benefit with a total of 814 points after adding his six best scores of 2019 to 2021 (the pandemic had to be extended after only very few tournaments could be played in 2020) and its best six from 2018 to 2019 depreciated to half their original value. Although in its category, the -66 kg, it was 69 °, it was finally the best ranked in the country.
Seventh place at the Guadalajara Pan American Championship in November 2020, having won a fight at the Baku World Cup in 2018, and having reached the eighth-finals of the Kazan Grand Slam and the sixteenth-finals in Tbilisi, ended up being key for your Olympic qualification.
Ian Ignacio described the news as something expected and announced that he will continue his preparation at home and with his brothers, under the training of his father, Andrés Sancho; just as they did during the closing of the tatamis at the beginning of the pandemic. «We were very sure of the classification, but we were waiting for it to become official, and today we received the news from the International Judo Federation, and we were very happy. Now we are entering another stage, focusing on the Games. I have the joy of being at home, with my family, with my people, and we will continue to prepare ourselves as best we can to arrive in the best conditions at the Tokyo Olympic Games ».
In this way, Sancho joins the surfers Brissa Hennessy and Leilani McGonagle, the athletes Andrea and Noelia Vargas, the road cyclists María José Vargas and Andrey Amador, the freestyle BMX cyclist Kenneth Tencio, the gymnast Luciana Alvarado, and the swimmers Beatriz Padrón and Arnoldo Herrera.
