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The Venezuelan fencer, Olympic champion in London 2012, lives a second youth at 36 years old with two victories in World Cup events and being number 2 in the world. But he warns that he sees the future of fencing in his country as “quite difficult”.
Rubén Limardo lives these days between Tokyo and Paris. The first city remembers the hard blow that he experienced after the early elimination that he suffered in the Olympic Games in the Japanese capital. A setback from which he has more than recovered and that allows him to dream of being in 2024 for the City of Light jousts.
He lives, yes, in Lodz, about 140 kilometers from Warsaw (Poland). Rubén tells in an interview that he now tries to “manage the gasoline”. He is 36 years old, but he is adding achievements that he had not achieved since his youth.
At the beginning of March he won the Budapest Grand Prix and in November he won gold at the épée World Cup in Bern. “I feel at another level in terms of maturity,” says the Olympic épée champion in London 2012. He is currently number 2 in the world in the ranking of the International Fencing Federation, only behind the French Romain Cannone, current champion Olympian and executioner of Rubén in the round of 32 of Tokyo 2020.
Our Rubén Limardo Gascón sounds the Gloria al Bravo Pueblo in Hungary. By becoming CHAMPION of the Budapest Grand Prix. Long live Venezuela! 🇻🇪 pic.twitter.com/E0uXqE8XHc
– FEDESGRIMA VENEZUELA 🇻🇪 (@fedesgrimavzla) March 6, 2022
“This gives me confidence to fight for those points and maybe snatch that first place.” But that number 1 in the world is not the only goal that is on the horizon for the man born in Ciudad Bolívar. Rubén aspires to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics in what would be his fifth games. In addition, now he also wants to reach the team modality and “dreams” that his brother Jesús also wins an Olympic medal.
Some training conditions in the midst of difficulties
Before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Rubén worked as a delivery man in Poland looking for a way to support himself amid the shortage of resources left by the pandemic. Today he has already left that bicycle and supports himself with “own resources” although that forces him to be thinking about the economy. For example, his team traveled by car to Hungary from Poland because it was three times cheaper than the plane. “We always have to be at the competitions, no matter how we have to travel.”
Regarding the aid from the Government of Venezuela, Rubén says that he “hopes” that these resources will arrive by the middle of this year. “In one way or another they (the government) have to continue supporting the team.”
He regrets the situation of his coach and uncle, Ruperto Gascón, who does not have a formal contract and who has not been paid by the Venezuelan authorities since the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, as denounced on France 24. “If she keeps this up, she’s going to leave,” she says.
On the future of fencing in Venezuela: “I see it as quite difficult”
Rubén is part of a team of about 20 Venezuelan fencers who live in Lodz and who must combine training with part-time jobs that allow them to cover their expenses. This selection is the one that Ruperto Gascón has supported for years, largely out of his own pocket. They are the fencing elite of their country.
But when it comes to Venezuelan territory, the scenario is different. “They are not working at the level (…) because they do not have the trained ones, the professionals.” For Rubén “the only ones” who have given results at an international level are the members of his team in Poland.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he declares, emphasizing that he sees it as “quite difficult. A scene that is no stranger to other sports in Venezuelawith many other athletes who have decided to emigrate to train outside their land and denouncing those non-payments of aid that are not fulfilled.
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