Mexican Sport Aims For a New Era

(ATR) Mexico has enough infrastructure to aspire to become a sports power. But it is still a pending issue in that country.

In the last Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the Mexican delegation did not win a gold medal and had to settle for three silver and two bronze medals.

Mexico's president-elect, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has promised to turn sports into a state priority.

However the veteran Mexican sports director, Ivar Sisniega, consideres that "it is too early" to comment on the possible effects of the new government's plans.

"I assume that because of the planning that sports is taking, it will have a more important role," said Sisniega, currently general secretary of Panam Sports and president of the "Queremos Mexicanos Activos" Foundation, an entity that promotes health through physical culture in the citizenship.

Sisniega revealed to Around The Rings that Panam Sports is waiting to see who will be the new head of the National Sports Commission (CONADE) "because one of the first decisions may be hosting in Mexico the First Pan American Youth Games¨.

The names of three candidates appear to lead CONADE: the 1996 Olympic medalist in the Atlanta Games, Bernardo Segura; the 400-meter Olympic runner-up in Athens 2004, Ana Gabriela Guevara, and the entrepreneur and former swimmer, Dieter Holtz.

The three were part of the team that designed the sport project of the new president, who is said to prefer baseball as his favorite sport with the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball as his team.

CONADE, founded in 1988, is an entity dependent on the Secretariat of Public Education that will be headed by Esteban Moctezuma in the new administration of López Obrador.

Among the measures that the next director would adopt would be to reduce by up to 50 percent the organization's organic structure.

According to Segura, it has been proposed the creation of a program that would be called "RED" (Business Rewards to the Olympic Work") in charge of scholarships for sports talents and high performance athletes.

A national register of trainers that will seek to ensure job recognition and social benefits of law, the creation of community centers in the most marginalized areas of the country, and the University of Sports, are in the perspective.

Segura, who has been very critical of sports officials of the previous federal governments, directed the Sports Institute of the Federal District between 2000 and 2003.

Meanwhile, Ana Gabriela Guevara, also a member of the leftist political coalition "Junto Haremos Historia", said that if López Obrador asked her to take charge of the CONADE, she would respond affirmatively.

The former athlete, three times medalist in the world athletics championships of Edmonton 2001, Paris 2003 and Helsinki 2005, revealed that in 2012 during the previous presidential campaign, she suggested to Lopez Obrador the need to create a Sports Secretariat.

After her retirement, she directed the Sports Institute in Mexico City in 2008.

The most mentioned in recent days to be at the head of the CONADE is Dieter Holtz, currently the head of the group of experts in sports and health who prepared the proposal on physical activation and sport included in the Nation Project 2018-2024 of López Obrador.

According to several analysts,Holtz would not be very interested in that position,but rather in an unofficial way he supports Horacio de la Vega, the leader of the capital's sport.

Holtz presented a study of sports systems in different countries such as the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Great Britain, Australia, South Korea and Spain. In some of these nations he lived in his stage as an athlete.

These personal experiences were added to the investigations of a work team to analyze academically and with facts the results in other countries and the deficiencies or areas of opportunity in Mexico.

The project was discussed with the representatives of the sports of the different political parties in Mexico, the CONADE, the sports federations and the Mexican Olympic Committee.

Among the main points of the plan is to prioritize physical activation and differentiate it from social sports-high performance and increase the number of physical education teachers and coaches.

Respecting the powers of the Mexican Olympic Committee and the Olympic Charter, and the creation of a new governing body, the Agency for the Development of Mexican Sports, composed of active and retired athletes, private initiative and government, are also included in the plan.

Also included in the project is adjusting the elections of president of the CONADE to four years coinciding with the Olympic cycle, and not every six, and the creation of a new body, the Coordinating Council of Sports-Related Companies, which will integrate production brands of equipment, logistics, facilities and foundations focused on physical activity.

Apart from its results in the Olympic Games, Mexico scores the worst in the child obesity index and second-worst among adults.

The new López Obrador government will take office on December 1.

Reported by Miguel Hernandez.