I remember my first tournament, the South-American U17 championship in 2011. I was so exited, 13 years and already representing Peru, what could be better? At that age, nothing. Water polo in Peru was so unknown, that each player had to pay their airplane ticket, we had to take money to buy food because if not we would be hungry and believe me that in a game you lose a lot of energy. The energy section was not my problem because I only played approximately 10minutes the whole tournament.
Things started to go better for us, we got 4th, classified to the Pan-American games and then eventually to the first Youth World Cup in 2012 at Perth, Australia. I remember that day when Tony, my coach told us, don’t get too excited, we are just taking Peru’s first step in its water polo history, you are nothing yet. Wise words from our coach, we thought that we were the best of the world because we qualified and guess what? We got last 20/20, but qualifying was already a step, Peru’s first World Cup. |
The problem is that when we got back to Peru from our last tournament in August 2014, the commission didn’t let us train with the national team, they told us that we had to practice with our clubs. From practicing 6 hours a day, Monday- Sundays we went to practicing 4 or 5 times a week 3 hours. This kept going for 7 months, it was unbelievable. I don’t want to demerit the clubs, but it isn’t the same to practice with a national team than with a club. The real problem was the commission itself. When you give someone too much power, they become greed, selfish and their ego controls them. They were thinking about themselves. They were only thinking about their political future movement and not about us, the athletes. Eventually all of the athletes lost their strength, physical resistance, technique, tactical thinking, everything. |
In Lima there are only 4 clubs, Regatas, Vista, Campo de Marte and Aquatica. Suddenly, when the commission was revoked, some clubs didn’t allow their athletes to practice with the national team!!! They didn’t let them train for 7 months, and now they don’t want to let them practice with one of the most talented coaches there is in the planet. That’s a huge Peruvian problem. Bad leaders only think about the profits they can gain and not about the athletes. | I decided to write this blog post because for the first time in history, Peru has a team that is strong enough to classify to a final in the South American U20 games hold in Lima, Peru from April 19-25. We have less than a month and stupid problems keep appearing, damaging us, the athletes and I cant stand it anymore. |
Diego, Nick, Sebastian, Nelson, Santiago, Sebastian, Nicolas, Jefferson, Sebastian, Eduardo, Javier, Adriano, Eduardo, Nicolas, Rodrigo and Augusto, we are more than a team, we are a family, a family of athletes; we are the ones fighting for Peru in the pool, now we are looking for a medal and respect.