Photo: Yeison López won the silver medal for Colombia in the 89kg weightlifting category.
The Paris 202 Olympic Games
The national delegation concluded its presentation at the multi-sport event with four medals: three silvers and one bronze.
Mindeporte Press
Bogotá, August 11, 2024. The curtain has fallen on Colombia’s performance at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, an event that will be memorable for being the first to have an equal number of women and men as participants, a notable milestone for gender equity worldwide.
At the end of the competition, Colombia completed its presentation with four medals: three silvers and one bronze, achieved by two women and two men.
Two of the medals came from weightlifting: Yeison López, in the 89kg category, and Mari Leivis Sánchez, in the 71 kg category. Both finished with silver medals and continue to position this sport as the most successful for the country in the history of the Olympic Games. Since Sydney 2000, it has been present on the podium with a total of 11 medals: two golds, six silvers, and three bronzes.
Meanwhile, Ángel Barajas delivered Colombia its first medal in these Olympic Games, which was a historic silver for national gymnastics, being the first in the history of this multi-sport event. Barajas, 17 years old, also became the youngest athlete in the country to step onto an Olympic podium.
Finally, Tatiana Rentería won the bronze medal in women’s freestyle wrestling at 76kg, becoming the third medal in the country’s history in this sport, following Jackeline Rentería’s medals at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics. Among the medalists in Paris 2024, two were part of the Intercollegiate Games: Tatiana Rentería and Yeison López. Additionally, all are part of the Ministry of Sport’s Athlete Excellence program.
Furthermore, the country obtained a total of 14 Olympic diplomas in these Olympic Games, divided among eight women and six men: Flor Denis Ruiz, Cristian Ortega, Martha Bayona, Lorena Arenas, Luis Javier Mosquera, Angie Valdés, Yenny Arias, Ingrit Valencia, Luis Felipe Uribe, Ángel Hernández, Mateo Carmona, Queen Saray Villegas, Valeria Araújo, and the women’s soccer team.
Highlighting these achievements is the time of 1h 27 minutes and 03 seconds set by Lorena Arenas in the women’s 20km race walk, which became a new national record and surpassed the time recorded at Tokyo 2020 by two minutes. Additionally, Martha Valeria Araújo’s seventh place finish in the heptathlon, where she scored 6386 points, establishes a new South American record.
Likewise, Luis Felipe Uribe’s performance in the 3m springboard event is noteworthy; with his sixth-place finish, he became the first diver to obtain an Olympic diploma in this category and the third in history after the duo of Juan Guillermo Durán and Víctor Ortega finished in sixth place in the 10m platform event.
On another note, Ángel Hernández stands out as the first athlete from the country to finish among the top eight in trampoline gymnastics, and Queen Saray Villegas made a remarkable debut in BMX freestyle, finishing fourth. In total, seven of the 18 disciplines obtained an Olympic diploma in Paris 2024.
In weightlifting, Yenny Álvarez set both national and South American records in the snatch at 59kg, lifting 105 kg; Mari Leivis Sánchez and Luis Javier Mosquera also set national records in the women’s 71kg and men’s 73kg categories, respectively. Sánchez established a new record in the clean and jerk (145kg) and total (257kg), while Mosquera did so in the snatch (155kg) and total (340kg).
Meanwhile, in track cycling, Stefany Cuadrado improved the junior world record in sprint, achieving a time of 10.508 seconds in the qualifying phase. She surpassed the previous record of 10.709 seconds held by French athlete Mathilde Gross from the 2017 Montichiari World Championships by 201 hundredths.
Colombia concludes its participation in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and prepares to accompany the Paralympic delegation, which begins its participation on August 28th. We continue to advance in dignity with support for our athletes and Para-athletes, ambassadors of peace in the world!