The calendar shows that there is less than a month left until the beginning of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The official activity will get underway on Wednesday, July 24, with several football and rugby seven events, but the event that the world is anxiously awaiting will take place two days later. On Friday the 26th, in an opening ceremony unprecedented in history, the opening will take place on the Seine River, part of the heart of the capital of France.
As reported Infobaea few weeks ago the process was launched to choose the two athletes, a woman and a man, who will be in charge of leading the rest of the delegation that will accompany them on one of the hundreds of barges that will transport the athletes around a route of about six kilometers that will have its outcome near the Eiffel Towermore precisely in the Trocadero Squarethe space where the final shows of the inauguration will be held, waiting for the lighting of the cauldron.
For the election of the flag bearers, the COA Athletes Commission established that only those who are part of the official list of their sports could be candidates, which is why the dream of many of seeing Lionel Messi The light blue and white one flying in the middle of the Seine was quickly deactivated. Will Julián Álvarez have a chance if he is going to play for Mascherano’s Under 23 National Team? There are hours left to meet the selected ones.
Faced with this scenario, each national sports federation with an Olympic presence in Paris arranged to send its male and female option to wear the national insignia. In some cases, such as Fernanda Russo, was not part of the vote because the day after the inauguration – Saturday the 27th – he will compete in the mixed 10 meter air rifle event along with Julián Gutiérrez. The sports shooting will take place 130 kilometers from the city, in the Chateauroux Shooting Range.
Among women, a Lioness with great experience is one of the great candidates. At 35 years old, Rocío Sánchez Moccia She will be one of the leaders of the women’s hockey team that will seek to repeat the podium as it did three years ago, in Tokyo. rochywho won multiple medals in his career, accumulated two with Las Leonas in the 2012 London Olympic Games and the edition that was played in 2021 in Japan.
Facing what will be his last time with one of the most winning teams in the history of Argentine Olympic sports, Moccia knew how to travel to Tokyo without his daughter shortly after her birth. Now, he will have to guide Fernando Ferrara’s team once again. Will she be chosen for the flag?
Another one that has a chance of earning a place at the opening of the Paris Games in a month is Bethlehem Casetta, another case of an athlete who took a break to be a mother and returned with all the laurels. Olympian in Rio 2016 and in Tokyo, the Mar del Plata native went through a special process recently. After winning gold at the 2022 South American Games in Asunción, she made a confession that shocked everyone and everyone.
“The time has come to step down from high performance for a few months. I am happy to tell you that a new member is coming to my family,” Casetta mentioned once she came down from the podium and announced that she was expecting her first daughter. That is, she ran her test – 3,000 meters with obstacles – while three months pregnant. After Lina was born, he got ready to return and did it with everything: At the Pan American Games in Santiago last year, she set the clocks at 9:39.47 and lowered the continental record by almost two seconds to become the Pan American champion of the specialty.
Next Sunday, once their qualification for Paris 2024 is made official by the ranking of World Athletics – she is ranked 31st in the world of the specialty – perhaps she will already know that on July 26 she will be accompanied by an athlete to carry the flag together.
In the men’s category, the options are varied and the protagonists are athletes who have been important for their discipline in recent history. There will not be many medal winners who will be in the French capital and several of them could have the pride of wearing the sky blue and white colours on a boat.
If we talk about team sports, The Lions have two possible options who can be chosen by the Athletes Commission of the Argentine Olympic Committee who lead two glories such as Walter Pérez – former gold cyclist in Beijing 2008 with Juan Curuchet – and the judo icon, Paula Pareto, two-time medalist and champion in Rio 2016. Among the players who were part of the feat in the Wonderful City are Matias Rey and Agustín Mazzilli.
In addition to the gold medal winners with the men’s hockey team, there is another duo that could be nominated by several federations. they are Facundo Conteson of the remembered Hugo, and Luciano De Cecco: From their hands, head and heart, the volleyball team beat Brazil in the duel for bronze in Tokyo and repeated the podium achieved 36 years ago at the 88 Seoul Games.
On the list, one that will not be missing from the federations’ proposals is Marcos Moneta. The one chosen as the best player in the world of rugby sevens in 2022 recovered from an injury – a fractured fibula – that kept him away from the fields in the definition of the historic season of Los Pumas 7s on the world circuit, but he will be part of the 12 chosen by Santiago Gómez Cora who will defend their Olympic podium achieved three years ago.
Are there any other options? Yes, among them two athletes stand out in individual events who have just achieved two Olympic diplomas on their excursion through Japan. As Infobae learned, Agustín Vernice is one of the athletes nominated to be flag bearer. The native of Olavarría, who earned his right to be in Paris 2024 after being a finalist in the World Canoe Speed Championship, won the Pan American gold medal in the K1 1000 and will arrive in France with a streak of three participations in world finals, more eighth place in the final of his event in Tokyo 2020.
In this way, the process that will be defined in the next few hours is simple. Once all the members of the COA Athletes Commission, which are 14, have defined their candidates, they will transmit their application to the board of directors headed by the president of the entity Mario Moccia.If there are no changes, the election will continue and then the long-awaited announcement for Argentine sport will be made.
Who will be the athlete who will follow the tradition that was launched in Tokyo and that for Argentina had Cecilia Carranza and Santiago Lange, the champions in Rio 2016, as the first couple to carry the flag at the Olympic inauguration? It won’t take long to find out.
