Norte secures three more medals at first National Youth Games

The first National Youth Games are underway in the Coffee region, now in its fourth day, with athletes from Norte de Santander showing off their talents in artistic gymnastics, cycling, archery, basketball and para table tennis.

At the event, the athletes wearing the red and black uniforms achieved an incredible performance, winning three medals in two general events and one adapted sport.

This is a highly anticipated competition in men’s artistic gymnastics, and is expected to produce the most medals. In the individual all-around event, Jan Dairo Zabala took the silver medal with 79.250 points, while gold medal favorite Keiner Camilo Vera only took bronze with 78.500 points. The gold medal went to Antioquia’s Manuel Antonio Lopez, who scored 81.000 points.

“Execution errors in the athletes’ routines affected their performance,” coach Jairo Ruiz Casas said in Armenia. “Congratulations to gymnast Manuel Lopez, who performed flawlessly and without any mistakes during the competition.”

Regarding Camilo Vera, he explained: “He was shaky in the second line of the floor and had difficulties during the turns, while Yann Dairo (Zabala) did not move well, which led to the result we saw.”

Other medals were won in para sports, with José Lopez of Zolmer securing a bronze medal in para table tennis in the TT-10 category, beating Kundinamr’s Mateo Pita. The gold medal went to Samuel Alexander Sánchez of Kundinamr and the silver medal went to Gabriel Ureña of Ballet.

In archery, Cucuta’s Andrés Mauricio Ardilla has advanced to the individual finals of the combined bow and will compete for gold today against Antioquia’s Julián Gomez. In the preliminaries, Ardilla eliminated Sucre’s Mauricio Martinez, Santander’s Samuel Manrique and Bogotá’s Wilson Ray.

In team sports, the Norte women’s team struggled throughout the match, losing three times. Yesterday they lost 44-29 to Santander, lost 59-34 to Vallée in the second round and lost their first game 65-40 to Bogotá, ending any chance of medal contention.

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Lastly, in the women’s road race, Antioquia’s Luciana Osorio took gold with a time of 2 hours, 49 minutes and 04 seconds. Osorio also won gold in his personal time on Saturday.

Of the three players from Norte de Santander, only Dana Valentina Sánchez finished the race, finishing in 24th place, 11 minutes and 33 seconds behind the winner. Silver and bronze medals went to Antioquia’s Sorli Quesada and Angelina Roa.

Edouin Andrés Raguado and Manuel Camilo Perdomo are scheduled to compete in today’s men’s road race.