He jumped thinking of her, he won the gold and on the podium he looked at the sky, to dedicate it to her with a tear in his throat.
With a special dedication, the barely 16-year-old athlete, Leonardo Olate, a student at the Liceo Bicentenario de San Nicolás, a figure in the Promesas Chile program and the Club Atlético San Nicolás, sealed his historic participation in the Bolivarian Games, Sucre, Bolivia, 2004.
“Leo” confirmed his tremendous potential in Chilean and South American athletics, by winning the gold medal in the pole vault event, jumping 4.40 meters, a triumph that he dedicated to his unforgettable grandmother, Sonia Olate, who died on the 22nd. December 2023.
In fact, on the day of his funeral, Leonardo deposited all the medals he had won in his career in the tomb where the person who had marked his life since he was a child was buried.
“Once, before you left, I promised you something and I swore to achieve it. And today I kept my promise. I love you so much grandma, kisses to heaven. This triumph is just for you,” Leo Olate excitedly posted on his social networks, following touching the sky in Sucre, despite the difficulties generated by the climate and altitude of Bolivia.
Beyond the exciting dedication, the great trump card of athletics in the Ñuble Region, withstood the strong attacks of the wind and the prevailing altitude, since throwing at 2,800 meters was a tough obstacle for all the athletes, he says from Sucre, his coach, Alexis Quiroga.
Difficult adaptation
“Their adaptation was quite difficult since the height affected them a lot. They were going up the stairs and getting agitated, so it was very difficult to compete like that. Furthermore, in the competition there was too much wind that made it impossible for the rod to stay still. It affected all the other competitors, but Leonardo was able to get by and completed the jumps. This is based on the fact that we are used to training in all types of weather throughout the year,” commented Quiroga.
“We have been preparing since December 2023 with a view to these international competitions. The goal was to be a medalist, but we never thought regarding gold. This came regarding thanks to Leonardo’s skills, to be able to resolve adverse weather situations and as an example this same thing happened to us in Puerto Rico, but with torrential rain.
“Always thanks to the support of the commune of San Nicolás, Mayor Víctor Hugo Rice, Don Víctor Reyes our director and the unconditional family support that Leonardo has. Let’s go for more than our ceiling is the sky. Several competitions are coming up in the future. At the end of the month we have the National U20 in which we must make the mark for the South American U20 in Lima, Peru, and there we can achieve the mark to qualify for the U20 World Cup. “They are very important events that are coming very soon and we must work hard to achieve the results we want,” says Alexis Quiroga, while his pupil opts for silence and looks in the sky for his beloved grandmother Sonia, who accompanied him on that jump that was worth a gold.
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