In Maringá, Brazil, the Colombian para-cycling team shone. The national team, which participated with 10 riders in the Pan American Track and Road, between 17 and 20 March, had a formidable performance, which made the national tricolor wave, on 27 occasions, on the podiums of the track events and, on 17, on the road events. The national team finished with 44 total medals, placing in second place, second only to Brazil.
Alejandro Perea, Javier Serna, Jaime Castañeda, Juan José Betancourt, Carolina Munévar, Paula Ossa, Eulises León, Leonardo Varón, Róbinson Jaramillo and Juan José Florian were the representatives for Colombia at the Velodrome of the Olympic Village of Maringá and on the routes of the state of Paraná, in Brazil.
Javier Serna and Alberto Castañeda were responsible for drawing a smile on the country. In the tandem track event they left a record of 4,34,841 to climb the top step of the podium and win the first gold medal for Colombia in the continental competition. Since then, the yellow, blue and red trail began to become recurrent on the podium runway in Brazil.
Carolina Munévar, part of the Colombia Team, a strategy created with an initial investment of 7 billion pesos for the Paralympic sector seeks to project high achievements for Paris 2024, was one of the most outstanding throughout the Pan American. The rider won six gold metals, in the tests of: individual pursuit; 500 m; scratch; omnium; individual time trial and road circuit.
Likewise, between Paula Ossa, Alejandro Perea and Juan José Betancourt, who were also called up on the roster of the Colombia Paralympic Team, the country won 12 more metals. Nine of them gold, while the remaining three were silver.
With the results achieved, translated into more than four dozen medals won in four days of the championship, the national team added valuable points in the UCI world ranking, which allow it to accommodate with an advantage in obtaining a place for the next Parapan American Games in Santiago 2023 and the Paralympic Games of Paris 2024.
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