Costa Rica has two qualified for the Olympic Games and four for the Paralympic Games. Surfing, weightlifting, gymnastics and boxing in their latest qualifiers.
When there are about five months left for the Olympic Games and six for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, the two events that culminate the most compressed Olympic cycle in history to compensate for the forced extension of the Olympic process towards Tokyo, athletes Costa Ricans with options to reserve a ticket for these events appeal to pre-Olympic tournaments, seeking to maintain themselves in the rankings or world championships with this objective or achieving the necessary times, distances or scores.
Athletics, surfing, artistic gymnastics, boxing, taekwondo, judo, BMX Freestyle cycling, weightlifting, swimming, wheelchair tennis and table tennis are some of the sports where the main options for possible Olympic or Paralympic cards that can be added are the surfer Brissa Hennessy and a road cyclist yet to be defined for the Olympics, or the archer Pilar Riveros, the archer Diego Quesada, the shooter Paola Arana and the sprinter Sherman Güity for the Paralympics.
What every athlete needs
Athletics is the sport with the most places with a total of 1,810 around the world (905 men and 905 women) in all events.
The sisters Noelia and Andrea Vargas in the 20-kilometer walk and 100-meter hurdles respectively and the 400-meter hurdlers Daniela Rojas and Gerald Drummond are the main Ticos hopes for the Olympic Games, while Melissa Calvo could try to join for the Paralympic Games.
This time, the youngest of the Vargas Mena will need a maximum time of 1 hour, 29 minutes and 20 seconds or be among the first 48 eligible participants classified by ranking to be one of the 48 marchers competing. For now, her best time since the last day of 2022 is 1 hour, 37 minutes and 14 seconds obtained in a Central American Championship; but she is also in 68th eligible place after removing Chinese, Spanish, Australian, Mexican, Ukrainian, Ecuadorian, Japanese, Portuguese, Greek and Slovak marchers who exceed the maximum quota of 3 per country. She will have almost four months to go down almost 8 minutes or climb a mountain of positions by climbing a wall if she wants to go to Parisian territory.
For Andrea the possibilities are much broader. By time, her best mark since last July is 12.78 seconds in the semifinals of the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games. Only one hundredth separates her from her second Olympic Games, but also by ranking she is in 45th eligible place after eliminating runners from the United States, Jamaica and Japan who exceed the maximum. There is space for 40.
Rojas also has a large number of options. By ranking it is the 44th eligible position, and by time its best record is 56.44 seconds achieved in the recent Central American and Caribbean Games San Salvador 2023. To be one of the 40 hurdlers who compete you will need to earn about four places or reduce the time mentioned in 1.59 seconds.
Finally, Drummond is the one who is most on track so far. By ranking he is in 20th place overall and 19th eligible for an American who exceeds the maximum quota. Much of the merit lies in the Central American Championship that was held in the National Stadium the previous year where he did a great time of 48.11 seconds that is still reflected in his ranking and that would have it at once in the Olympic Games, if it were not because that race was run in May and the Olympic qualification began in July. By staying in the eligible top 40, or clocking 48.70 seconds or less, he will qualify. Both he and his companions will have until the last day of this June to pursue those objectives.
Finally, Calvo has another option in the World Para Athletics Championships to be held in May in Japan. According to the classification criteria for the Paralympic Games, you do not need a specific time, but you do need to be one of the first two in the event or events where you are going to compete. And the same happens with the rest of the parathletes who attend. Other options will be high performance standards or two-party invitations.
For its part, the surf team, with Hennessy included by requirement, will seek in the Puerto Rico World Cup, to be held at this time until March 3, to position another woman and two men on the oceanic beaches of Tahiti, headquarters Olympic of this sport. But there is also a bonus of another place for the champion country in both men and women, so the performance of each and every one is very important for the ranking. In addition to her, Leilani McGonagle and Coral Wiggins make up the women’s team, while the men selected are Carlos Muñoz, Anthony Fillingim and Sam Reidy. Each of them will need to finish in the top five, and McGonagle and Wiggins in the top seven, not counting surfers who exceed the quota of two or three per country. Furthermore, this is the last opportunity to seek Olympic places in this sport.
In artistic gymnastics, Lucía Solano seeks to emulate the achievement achieved by Luciana Alvarado three years ago, and competes in the world circuit of World Cups of the discipline, with stops in Egypt, Germany and Azerbaijan in order to take one of the two quotas for devices. There will be another stop in Qatar, but it will not be until April, and it would be the last opportunity to access, since the Pan American Union distributed the continental quotas in the Pan American Games.
For boxing, Valeria Cárdenas is seeking an Olympic berth in Italy, for -50 kg, from February 29 to March 13. She needs to reach the semifinals at least to qualify, but if she doesn’t make it there she can try in another pre-Olympic tournament in Thailand at the end of May.
In taekwondo, the greatest possibilities of representation fall to Neeshy Lindo and Laura Sancho in the Olympic category and Andrés Molina in the Paralympic category. The last opportunity for them and him, as well as for the rest of the members of the combat team, is in the Pan American championship in the Dominican Republic, between April 9 and 11. They will need to be finalists at least in their categories (-57 and -49 kg, respectively) and he will need to be champion in -80 kg K44.
In judo everything seems to indicate that we will have to fight for a continental place. For now, Diana Brenes in the women’s -70 kg is in possession of this place. But there are also the three Sancho brothers (Julián, Sebastián and Ian Ignacio to a lesser extent) as the main options. Everything will be decided by the ranking of the International Judo Federation on June 23.
Although BMX cyclist Kenneth Tencio is currently competing in a world cup in Japan, the Olympic series in China in May and Hungary in June are his last opportunities to score points and achieve an Olympic berth in the French capital.
Weightlifting has four exponents such as David Jiménez, Andrés Peralta, Sofía Ramírez and Tatiana Salas, who fight for a place through the Simón Bolívar Cup qualifiers in Venezuela.
In swimming, it is almost a fact that we will have to be aware of universality places, since no swimmer or swimmer has Olympic Consideration or Classification times (mark B or A); While it is true they have until June 23 to search for them, there are no events scheduled by World Aquatics. On the Paralympic side, Camila Haase has until June 28 to look for them.
Tennis has many options in the Paralympic Games with José Pablo Gil, who today is 35th in the ITF ranking and 32nd eligible, removing a Japanese and two Frenchmen who exceed the maximum quota of four per country. He must retain that eligibility spot until July 15 to qualify.
Finally, in Paralympic table tennis the main options are Steven Román and Aneth Araya, who through tournaments seek points to remain in the first places in their classes by ranking at the cutoff on April 1 or risk it in the Thailand Pre-Olympic at the end of May.
2024-02-28 06:05:02
#Athletes #final #stretch #places #Paris #Semanario #Universidad
