Unlike its ally Cuba, Venezuela has never been an Olympic power, even before Chavismo: its medals at each Olympics can be counted on the fingers of one hand, at most.
However, even with low expectations, at the current Paris Games, Venezuelan athletes have not yet achieved a podium finish – in Tokyo, three years ago, they won four medals throughout the event. In Rio-2016, they won three podium finishes.
Another parameter, the number of athletes competing in the Olympics, reflects the economic, political and social crisis that Chavismo has exacerbated in recent years. Only 33 Venezuelan athletes qualified to participate in the competitions in France, the lowest number since Seoul in 1988.
In a recent interview with the EFE agency, Luis Salas, former director of high performance at the Ministry of Youth and Sports, stated that the economic crisis and sanctions imposed due to the lack of democracy in Venezuela are already having an effect on grassroots sports.
According to him, there is currently a shortage of around 60,000 physical education teachers in the country, 20,000 more than two decades ago. These shortages increase as the level of sports performance increases, and today the country has less than 400 high-performance coaches, according to Salas, few for a population of 28 million inhabitants.
“Much more investment is needed [do que o atual] to be able to compete with the great powers”, said the expert.
Despite the harm Nicolás Maduro has done to Venezuelan sports and society, many athletes flatter the dictator. The most emblematic case is perhaps that of Yulimar Rojas, who won Venezuela’s only gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, in the triple jump.
She visited the dictator several times and last year campaigned for a “yes” vote in a contested referendum, in which the Chavista dictatorship asked the Venezuelan population whether they approved of the government taking action to annex the Essequibo region, which accounts for 70% of the territory of neighboring Guyana.
Rojas was seen in a video walking with a Venezuelan flag in a dense forested area, which is unclear whether it was actually part of Essequibo. “Defend, vote and protect. For the nation we love and protect us. Participate this December 3rd, because Essequibo is ours,” the jumper said in the video.
Rojas, who is not competing in Paris due to an injury but is with the Venezuelan delegation in Paris, was once again the protagonist of a regrettable episode during the presidential election on the 28th, which the Chavista National Electoral Council (CNE) says was won by Maduro, despite strong evidence of fraud.
The Sports Minister of the Chavista dictatorship, Mervin Maldonado, posted on X photos of Rojas and another Olympic medalist, weightlifter Julio Mayora (silver in Tokyo), voting at the Venezuelan consulate in Paris.
The images were heavily criticized on social media because the Maduro regime imposed difficulties and several members of the Venezuelan diaspora were unable to vote in the countries where they live.
Rojas, who Maduro has said he considers “part of the family,” and the other Venezuelan athletes in Paris were also criticized for not speaking out about the fraud in the presidential election.
It was up to Venezuelan athletes who are not participating in the Olympic Games being held in France to publish messages condemning the lack of transparency in the election and the repression of the protests that have been taking place since then.
“Let no one forget that it is the people who rule, not a government. Let no one forget who the institutions and security forces owe their debts to, because it is to the people and not to a government. There is no one worse blind than the one who does not want to see,” said karateka Antonio Díaz at X.
Former baseball player Johan Santana, who played in the MLB, the biggest league of its kind in the world, also condemned the Chavista fraud and the repression of protesters.
“For years I have represented my country with pride, commitment and respect. As a public figure, I know that we will always be idolized or criticized for our actions (and I understand this, because it is our nature), but as a Venezuelan citizen, I ask that the will of the people be respected and that the rights of all Venezuelan citizens be respected,” he said.
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