After finishing his participation in the XXVII Pan American Individual Championship in Guatemala, Luis Ramón Garrido Esquivel mathematically consolidates his qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, via the international ranking of the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
The athlete, champion of the San Salvador 2023 Central American and Caribbean Games, closed the continental competition in the quarterfinal round of the men’s individual modality against the Brazilian Olympian Ygor Coelho by a score of 2-1 (21-19, 16- 21 and 16-21).
“I felt pretty good, I had had a bit of problems in the last three months due to an ankle injury, but in this Pan American I could see that my level and all the work we did paid off, I felt like I was again, always The continental competition is quite strong, I was close to taking the victory, but I feel happy to have sealed the Olympic ticket,” he commented.
The Pan American Individual Championship in Guatemala was the last scoring event for the national teams heading to Paris 2024, since the BWF international ranking will close on April 28, but it will be on the 30th of the same month when the assignment of the places becomes official. Olympic quotas: 35 men’s and 35 women’s, so given the imminent classification, Ramón Garrido would be the only Mexican who is among the first places in the world.
“I’m quite happy with the classification, until it becomes official. It has been a chaotic year in this Olympic process, which is how long our path takes to get the ticket, it was a year of giving the best scores for the world ranking and now it is over, I am still trying to process the moment, since it has been “Less than 10 months, I can’t imagine I would be in this position,” he shared.
Heading into the history of Mexican Olympic badminton
After an illness that almost took his life in 2016, overcoming eight knee surgeries and overcoming the uncertainty of knowing if he would play at the same level again, Luis Ramón Garrido assured that these last 10 months have been a path of mixed feelings, but in which he continued to make history in Mexican badminton.
The Nuevo León native became Central American champion in San Salvador 2023 and obtained for Mexico the first men’s individual medal in the Pan American Games with his bronze in Santiago 2023 and among other national and international titles won that brought him closer to the Parisian goal, which is why he qualified the year passed as one of the best in his sporting career.
“A long time ago, I would not have visualized it this way before the Central American and Pan American Games, closing all that journey with this Olympic ticket the way I did is something that I think I never imagined in my wildest dreams, for me, Paris 2024 is a dream come true,” he shared.
“For every high-performance athlete it is the peak of their career, it is what we all dream of when we are little, when we saw them on television, it is a personal improvement, after so many surgeries, that the doctors told me I would not be able to to play again, that I was not going to move the same, the illness, injuries, after all that is being able to say I achieved it, it is the culmination of this entire process that is so painful, sad, but so beautiful at the same time,” he said.
For Ramón Garrido, the next summer event would be his debut and will place him in the history of national sports, by becoming the second Mexican man in the discipline, which debuted on the competitive calendar in Barcelona 1992, to compete in the Olympic competition after what was achieved by Lino Muñoz Mandujano in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
“Lino is a reference in Mexican badminton because we know how complicated an Olympic process is and he has two Olympic Games in his career, it is admirable. Now we have to continue with that story and what we all want to do is improve it and try to win the first Olympic game for Mexico, that is my goal, to try to fight the best in the world,” he explained.
15 weeks before Paris 2024 starts, he will begin his preparation in Monterrey, which is his training center, but he will seek to add European activity and at the end of June, he detailed, he will compete in a US Open in the United States, the only competition prior to the great contest in the ‘City of Light’.
2024-04-14 15:42:02
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