Beijing Winter Olympics – LATAM Teams

As its official name indicates, the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing will be the 24th edition since its birth in 1924, in Chamonix, France, when the authorities of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to separate them from the Summer Olympics. The last edition that shared activities in the same year with the traditional Olympics were those held in Albertville, in 1992, and from then on they were organized two years apart.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are just around the corner as they officially start on Friday, February 4, and end on Sunday, February 20. In these games, nearly 3,000 athletes will participate in 15 disciplines in 109 tests.

As in all events, before the opening ceremony, the first events start on February 2 with ice hockey and curling, but the official moment that marks the start of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will be the ceremony of inauguration.

What security measures will you implement at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics amid the pandemic?

The organizers of the event in Beijing want to implement in these Winter Olympics, the health and safety scheme used in the past Summer Olympics, which consists of a closed-circuit system that can only be accessed by athletes, doctors, trainers, and essential personnel. This is primarily to prevent the rapid spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

What will this closed circuit include?

As published last December in a Games manual, the closed-circuit system will cover the venues, the official hotels, and the event’s transportation service.

What demands do the organizers have with each of the participating teams/countries?

Fully vaccinated participating countries will be able to enter the closed circuit without going through quarantine; meanwhile, those that are not vaccinated will have to go through quarantine for 21 days upon arrival in Beijing.

This prestigious event, which in all editions, from its creation to the present, has been characterized by being organized in February, except for its inaugural version, which began the last week of January. It has only been suspended for reasons of force greater than the Second World War; which ruled out the 1940 Olympics in Japan and Germany; as well as the 1944 Olympics to be held in Italy.

Winter Olympic disciplines

At the Winter Olympics, 15 disciplines from seven sports will be held and 109 sets of medals will be awarded.

• Biathlon: Combines the endurance and intensity of cross-country skiing with the precision and skill of shooting.
• Bobsleigh: Athletes do timed races in a specially designed bobsled to go down a narrow ice track.
• Nordic combined: It is made up of two independent sports that are ski jumping and cross-country skiing.
• Curling: Teams use brooms and special shoes to slide granite stones across the ice toward a target.
• Stunt skiing: The different stunt skiing specialties combine speed, great skills, and showmanship.
• Alpine skiing: Skiers reach speeds of up to 152 km/h as they glide down a winding course filled with sharp turns and dizzying jumps.
• Cross-country skiing: Still used today as a means of transportation, cross-country skiing is one of the original sports of the Winter Olympics.
• Ice Hockey: A fast-paced, contract-driven team sport that always draws large crowds.
• Luge: Athletes must traverse a narrow ice rink at high speed lying down, feet first, on a small sled.
• Figure Skating: It is an elegant mix of art and sport that includes individual competitions, pairs, and ice dancing.
• Speed ​​Skating: Evolved from a means of transportation across frozen rivers and lakes to a sport where you race against the clock and other competitors.
• Short Track Speed ​​Skating: Races are full of strategy, bravery, and skill as athletes compete against each other in a confined space.
• Ski Jumping: Skiers launch themselves off slides to soar through the sky, with distance and execution being crucial.
• Skeleton: Competitors slide at full speed down a narrow ice rink lying on their heads, and upside down, on small sleds.
• Snowboard: Combines elements of skateboarding, surfing, and skiing, and made its Olympic debut at the 1998 Nagano Games.

2022 Beijing Winter Olympics – LATAM Teams

The National Olympic Committees in Latin America announced the athletes who will occupy the places in these 2022 Winter Olympics. To these must be added other ice qualifiers such as the Mexican Donovan Carrillo in figure skating or Kellie Delka, from Puerto Rico, in the skeleton.

In total, 23 Latin American participants will meet at these Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics; which we will detail below, with their respective sports.

• Alpine skiing – 12 participants

Argentina: Francesca Baruzzi (Female Category) – Tomás Birkner (Male Category)

Bolivia: Simon Breitfuss (Male Category)

Brazil: Michel Macedo (Men’s Category)

Chile: Emilia Aramburo (Female Category) – Henrik Von Appen (Male Category)

Colombia: Michael Poettoz (Male Category)

Ecuador: Sarah Escobar (Female Category)

Mexico: Sarah Schlepper (Female Category) – Rodolfo Dickson (Male Category)

Peru: Ornella Oettl Reyes (Female Category)

Puerto Rico: William Flaherty (Male Category)

• Acrobatic skiing – 2 participants

Moguls

Brazil: Sabrina Cass (Female Category)

Slopestyle and big air

Chile: Dominique Ohaco (Female Category)

• Cross Country Skiing – 9 participants

Argentina: Nahiara Díaz (Female Category) – Franco Dal Farra (Male Category)

Bolivia: Timo Gronlund (Male Category)

Brazil: Jaqueline Mourao (Female Category) – Bruna Moura (Female Category) – Manex Silva (Male Category)

Chile: Yonathan Fernández (Male Category)

Colombia: Carlos Quintana (Male Category)

Mexico: Jonathan Soto (Male Category) 

Best Latin American Results in Winter Olympic Games

• Argentina’s best individual result was Osvaldo Ancinas’ 16th place in the slalom at Squaw Valley-1960.
• Chile will try to match their best result in Beijing, eleventh place in Thomas Grob’s Nagano-98 combined.
• The presence of Brazil in the Winter Games is more recent: it was for the first time in Albertville-1992.
• In Turin-2006, the best Brazilian and Latin American individual result came, with Isabel Clark, ninth in snowboard cross.
• Venezuela participated for the first time in Nagano-98, with Iginia Boccalandro, in luge.
• The Latin American representation began to make itself felt after Turin-2006, with emotional stories of personal improvement.
• Werner Hoeger, a 52-year-old university professor, was the only Venezuelan and finished 32nd out of 36 Luge entrants.
• In Sochi-2014 there were around thirty Latin American participants, with Brazil being the largest, with 13 representatives.
• The best result was obtained by the Chilean Dominique Ohaco, with her thirteenth place in snowboarding, although the great Latin American protagonist in Sochi was the Peruvian Roberto Carcelén, who ran the 15 km of cross-country skiing with two broken ribs in training, being able to reach at the end, in the last position of the test.

Record and data of LATAM contenders

A very moving story of one of the Latin American athletes who will participate in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is that of Puerto Rican William Flaherty, who, at only three years of age, underwent a bone marrow transplant to save his life from a rare form of cancer. The one who saved his life was his brother Charles by became his donor. Today, at the age of 17, William will succeed his brother Charles (the first Puerto Rican Olympian) in alpine skiing at the new winter games.

We can also highlight the hard work of Bolivia to be here with its two participants. On this occasion, this South American country will compete with the same figures from the 2018 winter games. It is worth remembering that this is the seventh time that it has left its mark on the Olympic soil: they debuted in 1956, they attended four editions in a row (1980, 1984, 1988, 1992), they returned in 2018 thanks to the same athletes, and now he will do the same in this new event.

In Alpine Skiing, we have Simon Breitfuss, who was the flag bearer for Bolivia in PyeongChang 2018. To get to know him, it is worth mentioning that he has dual Austrian-Bolivian nationality and that he was born in Zaams, Austria in 1992.

In Cross Country Skiing we have Timo Grönlund, born in 1987, he also has dual nationality, but Finnish-Bolivian. Those of Beijing 2022 will be his second Olympic Games, after having participated in PyeongChang 2018 in the 15 km classic style cross-country skiing event, where he finished less than 10 minutes from the winner.

Mexican Delegation

One of the promises to be among the best in these Olympic Games is, without a doubt, the Mexican Donovan Carrillo in the discipline of figure skating. Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, this Mexican skater achieved popularity thanks to his talent for executing his colorful routines that he performs with costumes alluding to Mexico and that he accompanies by popular music by famous singers such as Juan Gabriel.

Donovan Carrillo is one of Mexico’s flag bearers for these Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics; is the current national champion, and has participated in three Four Continents Championship finals (2018, 2019, 2020).

We also have Jonathan Soto in Cross-Country Skiing, who was born in Durango in 1993, but has lived in Minnesota, United States, since he was 12 years old, where he discovered cross-country skiing as an infallible method to keep fit during the winter for the athletic season at school.

Soto officially began competing as a national representative in 2019. Then a year ago, in his first World Cup, he got the Olympic quota for Mexico; now he will arrive in Beijing in 2022 to defend it.

Sarah Schleper, also in Alpine Skiing, can become the first woman to participate in six Winter Olympics in her discipline: alpine skiing. The quota for Mexico has already opened in the 2021 World Cup, and now it’s time to secure it. Schleper was born in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, and has already been a four-time US Olympian. Now, defending the flag of Mexico, the country where her husband was born, which she has represented since 2014, she will seek a new sporting feat.

Brazilian Contenders

The Brazilian delegation has some experienced athletes, such as Jaqueline Mourão. This 46-year-old Brazilian is attending her eighth Olympic Games, six of them in winter and two in summer (she competed in mountain biking in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, curiously where she competes again). She is one of the three names in cross-country skiing, along with Bruna Moura and Manex Silva. Mourão is the Brazilian athlete with the most participation in the Olympic Games.

Another athlete returning to Beijing after fourteen years and in a different climate is Jefferson Sabino. In 2008, he defended Brazil in the triple jump. He is now one of five members of the Brazilian bobsled team, which also includes Erick Vianna, Edson Martins, Rafael Souza, and Edson Bindilatti.