Uruguay will present itself to the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games with the third smallest delegation in its history, made up of 11 athletes that after a long road, marked by the coronavirus pandemic, they will try to achieve their best personal performances in the most demanding competitive framework they can face.
Uruguay managed to classify 11 athletes, a mark that only exceeds the Montreal 1976 Games (nine) and Los Angeles 1932 (one) in terms of representation.
They are Pia Fernández (1,500 m), Déborah Rodríguez (800 m) and Emiliano Lasa (long jump), in athletics, Mikael Aprahamian in judo (-81 kilos), Enzo Martínez (50 m free) and Nicole Frank (200 m combined) in swimming, Bruno Cetraro and Felipe Kluver in rowing (light weight double pair) and three competitors in yachting: Pablo Defazio and Dominique Knuppel (native class 17) and Dolores Moreira (radial laser).
Dominique Knuppel and Pablo Defazio, native class 17 yachting
With respect to Rio 2016, the number of representatives it fell in six athletes.
Regarding classified sports, Uruguay dropped from five to eight disciplines from Rio to Tokyo.
Since Seoul 1988 to date it has averaged a ranking of almost eight sports per Olympic Game.
The great merits
But there are two positive factors within this degrowth scenario.
In the first place, that from Tokyo they stopped applying wild cards, that is, invitations. This means that all classifications were achieved sportingly.
In Rio 2016, the weightlifter Sofía Rito Enoccson qualified after a reassignment of quotas after Kazakhstan was prevented from participating in that sport when the samples from London 2012 were reviewed, finding several positive cases that were not detected at the first opportunity.
Second that the number of five classified women was maintained, a mark only surpassed once in history, in Mexico 1968 when Uruguay appeared with five swimmers (Ruth Apt, Lylián Castillo, Mónica Figueroa, Ana María Norbis and Felicia Ospitaletche) and an athlete (Josefa Vincent).
It should be remembered that athletics and swimming ensure a minimum of one athlete per sex for those countries that do not have competitors with a direct classification mark.
In none of these sports did Uruguay achieve A marks as Emiliano Lasa, Andrés Silva and Déborah Rodríguez did for Rio 2016, the latter when the 800 m requirement was lowered.
The impediment to doing so was that for Tokyo the level of demand of the brands increased but a ranking system was also generated through which Fernández and Rodríguez were classified. Lasa is still classified by the universality quota because by ranking it was one place below the 32 entries to Tokyo.
Leonardo Carreño
Pia Fernández, 1,500 m of athletics
In swimming, Martínez achieved B mark twice in the 50 m freestyle qualifying with ease over the attempt of Martín Melconian in 100 m breaststroke, while in the female branch there was a frantic competition between Frank and Micaela Sierra that led them to beat 25 national records between the two in the qualifying period that opened in 2019. In the end, the best approach mark to mark B in the women’s section was Frank’s in 200 m medley over Sierra’s in 100 m breaststroke.
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Enzo Martínez, 50 m free swimming
In these two sports, pillars of the Olympic Games, Uruguayans were greatly affected by the shortage of skills imposed by the coronavirus pandemic since March 2019.
Something similar happened to Defazio-Knuppel when in 2020 they settled in Europe and were stranded in France due to mobility restrictions imposed by the pandemic.
Aprahamian entered through the window of the continental quota of judo when he himself had considered that he was not going to qualify.
Mikael Aprahamian, -81 k de judo
Installed throughout the Olympic cycle in Valencia, the judoka competed in Europe, Africa and America seeking to add point by point to qualify.
In the rowers, the pandemic had its positive side: it allowed Argentine coach Osvaldo Borchi to add hours and hours of training.
Cetraro and Kluver contested a crushing race one March to beat the powers of Chile and Brazil in Rio. They qualified with the great merit of being South American champions, a quality with which Rodríguez will also arrive in the 800 m of athletics.
Cetraro and Rodríguez will be the flag bearers for Uruguay at the opening ceremony to be held on Friday, July 23 at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.
It will be the first time in the history of the Games with one flag bearer and one flag bearer per country.
What sailing is one of the most represented sports with three classified is not news. Since Los Angeles 1984 Uruguay has an Olympic presence in this sport.
This is Uruguay’s Olympic history:
| Edition | Men | Women | sports |
| 1924 | 26 | 0 | 3 |
| 1928 | 17 | 0 | 1 |
| 1932 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 1936 | 37 | 0 | 6 |
| 1948 | 59 | 0 | 10 |
| 1952 | 31 | 1 | 9 |
| 1956 | 21 | 0 | 5 |
| 1960 | 34 | 0 | 8 |
| 1964 | 23 | 0 | 4 |
| 1968 | 21 | 6 | 8 |
| 1972 | 10 | 3 | 5 |
| 1976 | 7 | 2 | 5 |
| 1980 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1984 | 17 | 1 | 5 |
| 1988 | 15 | 1 | 8 |
| 1992 | 16 | 0 | 11 |
| 1996 | 12 | 2 | 8 |
| 2000 | 12 | 3 | 7 |
| 2004 | 13 | 2 | 6 |
| 2008 | 9 | 3 | 6 |
| 2012 | 24 | 3 | 8 |
| 2016 | 12 | 5 | 8 |
| 2020 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
The heavenly chances
Thinking a priori of a medal seems like a chimera for what is the development of high performance in Uruguay.
But it also sounded crazy in London 2012 to aspire to an Olympic diploma, something that Alejandro Foglia achieved in the standard laser class.
On that occasion, football returned with the clear objective of winning a medal, but the team led by Óscar Tabárez did not go beyond the group stage.
The medals that Uruguay won in its history
Golds
Soccer 1924
Soccer 1928
Silver
William Douglas rowing (single scull) 1932
Eduardo Risso en remo (single scull) 1948
Milton Wynants in Cycling (Points Event) 2000
Bronzes
Juan Antonio Rodríguez and William Jones in rowing (double pair) 1948
Juan Antonio Rodríguez and Miguel Seijas (double pair) 1952
Basketball 1952
Basketball 1956
Washington Rodriguez in boxing (bantamweight) 1964
In Rio 2016, entering with one of the worst qualifying records among 32 participants, Emiliano Lasa astonished the world by achieving sixth place.
Will you be able to repeat? It seems complicated by the one-and-a-half year injury that radiated him from the competitions until March of this year.
In April he jumped 8.11 meters, the only record of his season above 8 meters.
Emiliano Lasa, long jump in athletics
In Tokyo he will face 23 jumpers who this season jumped above 8.23 m.
Fernández in 1,500m will have his first Olympic experience after a brilliant and methodical qualifying cycle.
His national record is 4.09.45 and since he settled in Spain to make the final stretch of his preparation to train in a climate consistent with the one he will have in Tokyo, he successively achieved his best marks of the
season running at 4.11 and 4.10. The qualifying mark was 4.04.20 and the best mark of the season is 3.53.63, owned by Sifan Hassan, two-time world champion in 1,500 and 10,000 m, in which he lowered the world record on June 6.
The native of Flores stands out for being very fierce and competitive in big contests. If that leads her to run around 4.10 or below her records, she’ll make a great Olympic debut.
Rodríguez has come off the national record of 800 m with a mark of 2.00.20, considerably approaching the minimum qualification (1.59.50).
Carlos Pazos
Déborah Rodríguez, 800 m in athletics
In Rio 2016 he ran in 2.01 and did not pass the series. If he manages to lower his record, he may have a chance to advance to a semifinal in a test where he will have 24 competitors with a mark below 1.59.42. She will be the first Uruguayan woman in history with three Olympic Games.
Martinez comes from swimming in California at 22.8 with loads, the same brand from the Buenos Aires South American series where he broke the national record and won the gold medal in historic performance.
For both him and Frank, swimming close to their marks or lowering them will already be outstanding, although it can be said that Martínez’s level will be much more competitive due to the differences in development that exist between Uruguayan male swimming compared to female.
Nicole Frank, 200m swim medley
Aprahamian prepares everything to keep up with the competition. Although his results in the big tournaments have not been resonant, ippon is to judo what knockout to boxing therefore, even though he will face a high-ranking rival, there is always a hope that the favorite can be defeated.
For the rowers a final B (seventh to 12th place) would already be a great performance. An A final would be a huge feat.
Camilo dos Santos
Cetraro y Kluver with Osvaldo Borchi in the center
For yachting, getting into a medal race would be excellent, but the competitive level will be very high.
Dolores Moreira, radial laser yachting class
Lola Moreira toured Europe and left behind a rebellious knee injury while Defazio-Knuppel want to make history. And they have with what. Defazio is an intelligent and very competitive sailor and Knuppel joined the team with a great contraction of work.
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