Mexico’s 2003 World champion and 2004 Olympic silver medallist Ana Gabriela Guevara was presented with the National Sports Award for the second time in her career, during a sports parade organised every 20 November and led by Mexican President Vicente Fox.
The 400m runner shared top honours with the country’s other silver medallists in Athens: Belem Guerrero (cyclist) and Oscar Salazar (taekwondo), as well as three-time Paralympic swimming champion Doramitzi González, former football legend Hugo Sánchez and Fernando Gutiérrez (wheelchair). The latter two were given the award in the coaching category.
Guevara admitted that 2004 was a “difficult and complicated year (due to injury). I could not repeat my times and show what I am capable of doing. It taught me a lot and I will remember it for the rest of my life”.
“I am not a machine. I am not endless. I would like my legs to last forever and continue to have the satisfaction of representing my country, but that’s not the case,” she emphasized.
“The timing was key and we felt we were against the clock. Training just three months before the Olympics and thinking whether we should also train on Sundays,” she told the local press.
“I was never desperate, but I was worried that we were getting closer to the Olympics. I was in good form, but not in great form as I was years before.”
After awarding the Olympic medallists and the two coaches, Vicente Fox and his wife Marta Sahagún headed the sports parade that attracted some 17,000 people around the Zocalo Square in the heart of the Mexican capital.
The Mexican flag was carried by 2000 Olympic 20km walk silver medallist Noé Hernández, who was escorted by Vanessa Zambotti (judo), Olympic race walker German Sanchez and synchronized swimmers Olga Vargas and Nora Falcón.
Javier Clavelo Robinson for the IAAF