Yesterday was another tough day for the Mexican delegation; the number of Mexican athletes eliminated in Wuxi has now reached ten, without even advancing to the quarterfinals. There are three days of competition left, but it’s hard not to start feeling anxious about the numbers we’re seeing. It was a particularly bad day.
Samantha González lost in the first round to a Hong Kong competitor who is unranked. Although the lack of a ranking isn’t indicative of a player’s skill level, it does reflect a lack of recent international competition, so in this case, it’s irrelevant. I honestly believe—and I don’t say this with any pleasure—that it was lucky for the Mexican athlete to face an opponent of this caliber, because if she had faced any of the athletes who reached the quarterfinals, we might be lamenting more than just a single loss. The Hong Kong competitor had no idea how to handle the match, and that says it all about the Mexican athlete.
Fights like this make me question not only the selection process, but also the overall preparation required to reach a level like this—why isn't it working? But above all, how much longer are we going to keep pushing this issue?
Iker Casas’s case is also unique: two years ago in Baku, he fought three bouts, but in the -68 kg weight class. Gaining that much weight from one world championship to the next isn’t normal—I’m not saying this because of any health issues or anything like that; it’s just not normal. Although I didn’t see Iker as being overweight, I did see him physically drained—very different from the competitor in Baku… And the performance didn’t help much either; the first fight went smoothly, but the second against Nickolas was a completely different story.
Finally, Paloma García, who has a style that’s quite different from the rest of the competitors in general, but also particularly within her weight class: she does step. I think that’s a huge advantage in itself, but I get the impression that there comes a point where she doesn’t know what to do when she gains distance—again, all of that can be trained. Her first match went smoothly, but the second one against a taller, more cumbersome competitor from Poland ended up complicating everything for her. Poland… There must be more taekwondo schools in the neighborhood where I live than in that entire country—and then some.
Anyway…
Special mention must be made of Coach Araceli Ornelas’s role as head referee in the -46 kg final. With only 7 PATU referees out of the 70 officiating at this event, and Mr. Juan Manuel not part of the WT team, this is no small feat. So far, it is the only final in which Mexico has had a representative in the officiating crew. As the saying goes, “the talent is there; we just need to support it.”
(There are actually eight referees from the Pan American region, but the eighth one is known for handing out Olympic finals, and the reasons for her presence at this tournament are a whole other story that should be told another time… So she’s not included on the list)
This is Araceli’s second world final; her first was in Baku. She has also competed in two Grand Prix finals and a semifinal in Guadalajara. Unfortunately, there is currently no one in Mexico with that level of active experience, and that is precisely why she is one of a kind—the last of her kind. Gone are the days when having Mexican referees at events was a luxury.
Mexican taekwondo continues to set the standard at this world championship in at least one discipline; as I said, that’s no small feat, and it also proves that there’s more than one way to get to Rome—or, in this case, to China.
