Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

OLYMPICS: First Two Gold Medals Ever for Chile

Gustavo González

SANTIAGO, Aug 23 2004 (IPS) - Chile woke up Monday in a state of bliss, after a weekend in which tennis brought this South American country the greatest sports glories in its history, with two gold medals in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

In the early hours of the morning, weary municipal employees began to sweep up tons of confetti from the streets in downtown Santiago and other cities – a sign of the outburst of collective joy triggered when Chile’s Nicolás Massú defeated Mardy Fish from the United States in the men’s singles.

It was the second fiesta in 24 hours. On Saturday, Chileans took to the streets to celebrate the gold medal won by Massú and Fernando González in the men’s doubles against Germany’s Rainer Schüttler and Nicolas Kiefer.

On Saturday, González won the bronze medal in an intense five-set match against Taylor Dent from the United States that lasted three hours and 25 minutes. Later, it took three hours and 43 minutes – and again, five sets – for González and Massú to beat the two Germans. And on Sunday Massú laboured against Fish for four hours, in five sets.

The partying in this country of 15.5 million was proportionate to the adrenaline and suspense that built up over the weekend as the public National Television station broadcast the matches live.

Thanks to Massú and González, Chile climbed, at least for now, to first place in Latin America with respect to the number of gold medals won in Athens.

The Olympic Committee assigned another gold medal in the early hours of Monday morning to Cuba’s Yumileidi Cumba in the women’s shot put competition after the original gold medal-winner, Irina Korzhanenko from Russia, was disqualified for a doping offence.

The region’s other gold medal went to Robert Scheidt from Brazil, Sydney 2000 gold medallist, who won the Laser class.

The Cubans are leading the region in the overall Olympic ranking with eight medals: six bronze, one silver and one gold. Brazil has taken three – one gold and two bronze – Argentina two bronze, and Venezuela one bronze.

Latin America still has a chance at seeing more of its athletes crowned with the laurel wreath in women’s football (Brazil), women’s hockey (Argentina), men’s football (Argentina or Paraguay), and boxing (Cuba).

"No more moral triumphs," said local sports commentators in Chile after the country won its first gold medals in the 108 years of history of the modern Olympic Games.

Massú, 24 and González, 22 also made it to the top in the World Team Cup in Düsseldorf in 2003 and 2004.

Chile won its first Olympic medal in the 1928 Games in Amsterdam when Manuel Plaza, a humble newspaper vendor as a child, won the silver medal in the marathon.

In Helsinki, in 1952, Carabineros (militarised police) captain Oscar Cristi also took a silver medal in individual equestrian show jumping, and won another silver medal in grand prix team jumping along with two other Carabineros officers, Ricardo Echeverría and César Mendoza.

In the 1956 games in Melbourne, Chile won silver medals with Marlene Ahrens in the women’s javelin throw and boxer Ramón Tapia, while two other boxers, Claudio Barrientos and Carlos Lucas, took bronze medals.

Thirty-two years went by before Chile scored its next Olympic medal, when Alfonso de Iruarrízaga won a silver medal in shooting (men’s skeet) in the 1988 games in Seoul.

Twelve years later, the Chilean football team won the bronze medal in 2000, in Sydney.

Until this weekend, Chile had a total of just nine Olympic medals, and no gold.

President Ricardo Lagos congratulated Massú and González Sunday and announced a ceremony to honour them in the government palace of La Moneda in late September, after they return from the U.S. Open 2004.

Lagos said the performance by the two young tennis players in Athens was a "stimulus" for the country. "They have shown that for Chileans, where there’s a will, there’s a way," said the president.

But the press made it clear that the victory was the merit of Massú and González, and the backing of their families, rather than of any state policy of support for high competition sports.

González was just 10 years old when his father decided to stake his bets on his son’s future as an athlete. He sold off his assets, resigned from his job as a manager in a wheat mill, and moved to Miami, Florida for five years so his son could receive proper training.

Massú, who was born in 1979 in Viña del Mar, 120 km west of Santiago, also triumphed thanks to the support of his family, especially his mother, who financed his career with the money she made in real estate.

"Even if they say these medals belong to all of Chile, this gold is not for everyone," sports journalist Aldo Schiappacasse wrote in the newspaper El Mercurio Monday.

But if the candidates in the December 2005 presidential elections dedicate a few lines of their proposed government programmes to sports policy or announce modifications of the current Law on Sports, which is "inefficient and cumbersome", these medals will have served some purpose, added the commentator.