Ana Carolina de Jesus Azevedo at the Ibero American Championships in Lima (© Oscar Muñoz Badilla)
Brazil’s Ana Carolina de Jesus Azevedo clinched a sprint treble and Uruguay’s Valentín Soca completed an unprecedented distance double at the Ibero American Championships in Lima, Peru, from 29-31 May.
Two months after her semifinal run at the World Indoor Championships, 28-year-old Azevedo set a 100m championship record and personal best with 11.08 in the final in Lima, after equalling her personal best of 11.11 in the semifinals.
With the mixed 4x100m introduced to the championships, she added a second title with Brazil’s victory in 40.99 and she completed a sprint treble by winning the 200m in a wind-aided 22.50 (3.4m/s). A day earlier in the semifinals, she set a championship record of 22.89.
In his best season so far, world indoor 3000m finalist Soca first dominated the 10,000m on the opening day in 28:28.92, joining three other athletes from Uruguay to claim Ibero American gold in the 43-year history of the event.
Two days later, he clinched the 1500m gold in 3:41.17 to complete a unique distance double. Earlier in the day, his compatriot Déborah Rodríguez took the 800m victory, her third gold and sixth global medal on a historic day for Uruguay.
Micaela Levaggi of Argentina joined Soca and Azevedo as the third multiple gold medallist with her victories in the 1500m and 5000m.
Vitória Sena Batista Alves joined her fellow Brazilian Azevedo as a championship record breaker, running a national record of 12.67 in the 100m hurdles semifinals, before winning gold in a wind-aided 12.68 a day later. Another long-standing record fell in the men’s discus as Chile’s Claudio Romero threw 65.93m.
Sprinters Eloy Benitez and José Figueroa led the best performance ever for Puerto Rico. Benitez won the 100m in 10.01, just one hundredth of a second off the championship record set in 1988. Figueroa won the 200m in a wind-aided 20.21, a day after running a windy 20.00 in the semifinals. Both joined efforts with their teammates to win the 4x100m in 38.84.
Argentina’s Belén Casetta (3000m steeplechase) and Brazil’s Andressa Oliveira de Morais (discus) and Felipe Vinicius Dos Santos (decathlon) won their third Ibero American titles, while Puerto Rico’s Grace Claxton (400m hurdles), Brazil’s Pedro Henrique Rodrigues (javelin) and Gabriele dos Santos (triple jump) and Colombia’s two-time world bronze medallist Natalia Linares (long jump) added their second consecutive crowns.
Running the third leg of the Brazilian mixed 4x100m, Jorge Vides gained his fifth Ibero American gold and eighth medal in four editions of the championships over a 12-year span.
The host country shone with six medals, including gold by 2022 world champion Kimberly García León in the 10,000m race walk with a national record of 42:45.06. Ximena Zorrilla followed her with the hammer title on the same day.
The biennial tournament that brings together Spanish and Portuguese speaking nations across the Americas, Europe and Africa was inaugurated in 1983 and was held in Peru for the second time, after the 2018 edition in Trujillo.
Javier Clavelo Robinson for World Athletics