Special program: With our people in Paris 2024
Special sports program on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. teleSUR
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00:30How are you everybody?
00:49This is Carlos Montero.
00:51We are here in Paris on a fantastic day with a lot of information.
00:57We are a few hours ago.
01:00We are five hours away.
01:02I mean that one of ours, a wrestler from Cuba, is going to make history.
01:09I'm talking about Mijain Lopez, that if he wins his fight, he's going to do something
01:15nobody done before, won five gold medals in five consecutive games.
01:24Eduardo Regonesi.
01:25Let's go to see.
01:26He's in the place where it's going to be, this fight.
01:30Eduardo, what's the situation?
01:34Hello Carlos.
01:35Hello everybody.
01:36How are you?
01:37We are here at the Mix Zone at the Champ de Mars Arena where the wrestling matches are
01:40going to happen.
01:41You well mentioned in about hour and a half we should have the gold medal match between
01:48Mijain Lopez and Yasmania Costa from Chile, two of our own people battling, but of course
01:54all the eyes are on Mijain Lopez, the great, great star, the best wrestler probably in
02:00the history of the sport and we'll be here whenever you need us, Carlos, with all the
02:04details of that and what we were doing earlier this morning as well.
02:11Yasmania Costa represent Chile.
02:14That's where Eduardo is from, but he was born in Cuba, but he represent Chile.
02:21So we are going to talk about that later.
02:24Eduardo, please don't go far away and let's talk about the fans.
02:28We have a lot of people here.
02:29In other Olympics, I noticed people try to exchange pins.
02:33Here in Paris, I didn't see that much, but Charlie found a person who love pins and he's
02:40going to introduce us to him, but Charlie, go ahead with a brief headline.
02:48Hi, Carlos.
02:49How are you?
02:50Today, we have a very special guest on the program, but I can't tell you who it is yet.
02:55He's from San Diego.
02:56He's been to 11 Olympic Games and one last clue, it has to do with Olympic pins.
03:05That's all I can tell you for now.
03:06Stay tuned to find out more.
03:11That's enough.
03:12Thank you very much, Charlie.
03:13We'll be back with you in a second.
03:15Before going back to Eduardo, let me tell you just something happened right now.
03:20A girl, she's only 14 and she won a gold medal.
03:25She represent Australia.
03:28Her name is True Arisa.
03:31Only 14 years old and she got the gold medal in skate.
03:37The division is called park, there is street and park.
03:41Only 14 and she's going to go home with a gold medal.
03:45We all hope that the one who's home tonight with a gold medal, that is Mejain Lopez.
03:50Mejain Lopez, this legend from Cuba.
03:55Let's go back to Eduardo, who's in the place where it's going to happen.
03:59You are going to witness history, Eduardo, I believe, because to win in the same category,
04:05an individual game, a gold medal, that's amazing.
04:12Indeed, Carlos, there's a lot of expectation.
04:16We don't want to celebrate early, as you say.
04:18We don't want to pop the champagne before the match.
04:21A lot of caution still.
04:22But just so you know, we were walking here to the mix zone and the person in charge of
04:28seating everybody, of putting us in our place, they said, let me guess, you come to here,
04:32you come to see Mejain, right?
04:34Everybody here, I think most of the journalists, not only the Latin Americans from other regions
04:39of the world, are also very interested in this fight.
04:42Because we mentioned it in other editions of the newscast, he's not just a Cuban star,
04:47he's an international superstar.
04:49If he achieves what you were saying, achieving the fifth gold medal in a row, he will be
04:54a legend, he will be the GOAT, he will be the best wrestling of all time.
04:59If not, he might already be, but with five gold medals, he might be even the best Olympian
05:04of all time.
05:05So it's a very big deal, the match is going to happen.
05:07And right in front of him, we have Yasmany Acosta, who is his first Olympic gold fight.
05:13In Tokyo, he didn't make it, and in the Pan American Games in Santiago, he didn't make
05:17it to the finals, he got a bronze medal in there, so he must be very, very excited.
05:22The relief for him is that all the pressure is on Mijail Lopez, because everybody expects
05:26Mijail to win.
05:27So maybe Yasmany has that in his favor, but of course, we're going to be very, very interested
05:33in what's going to happen just about an hour and 20 minutes from now.
05:38Let's talk a little bit about another sport.
05:39We were following our own, the two Mexican girls on diving, I'm talking about Gabriela
05:45Agundez and Alejandra Orozco from Mexico.
05:48They were participating, diving from the 10-meter platform, and fortunately for them, they were
05:55against a competitor from China named Hong-Chan Kwan, who did amazing.
06:00She's only 17 years old.
06:02She even got a perfect 10 on one of her dives, and she scored way, way higher than the rest
06:09of the competitors.
06:10Just so you know, her scoreboard was 425.6, second place was 420.7, and third place, 372.1,
06:18so it's a huge lead, it's almost 50 points.
06:21The rest of the competitors only have around five, three, six points of difference.
06:26What this girl did was just simply amazing.
06:30A big crowd was there.
06:31We were able to talk to some of the fans that were present at the arena, and this is what
06:35they had to say.
06:38What did you come to see today?
06:41I've come to see diving, the women's 10-meter final, which I grew up watching diving, and
06:47I'm so excited to watch it.
06:48I've never seen it in real life.
06:50And then I'm also seeing athletics, so track and field later.
06:54Perfect.
06:56In the Olympics, do you pick what's available, what you like, what's your thought process
07:02to pick events?
07:03I mean, I think I have my preferences, and then it's about what's available, and it's
07:07also about what's affordable, because they're very expensive and it's a lot to get here,
07:11and then it's about, yeah, both spending money on swag, but also on the tickets and seeing
07:17the amazing events.
07:18Okay, what have you liked the most about Paris so far, the Olympics and the city?
07:23Okay, I love Paris.
07:24It's like my seventh time, but I love seeing it so happy.
07:31It can be quite a grumpy city sometimes, and it's so open to foreigners right now, it's
07:37so welcoming, and I've never been in such a place where the crowd control feels so safe,
07:42so welcoming, everyone is so happy, we're all getting along, and it just feels like
07:47such an uplifting atmosphere.
07:48I want to come to the Olympics every time because it just feels so nice when the world
07:53is so dark and tough right now.
07:56Well, the Mexican representatives ended up in fifth place, Aguntes, and Orozco finished
08:03on the eighth position.
08:05We got a chance to talk to some of the Mexican fans because it's very interesting what happened
08:09with Mexico.
08:10They are doing very well historically at diving.
08:13We asked some of the fans what they think about this.
08:16Why is Mexico so good at this?
08:18One of the reasons that they gave us is because there's been success in this sport.
08:23If you see success, you want to replicate it, you want to imitate it.
08:27For example, if kids are seeing that your skateboarder is doing well, more kids are
08:30going to pick up the skateboard and try that discipline.
08:33That's a very good analysis from a fan's perspective, and probably it's something worth looking
08:40at to see what are the strengths of each country.
08:42Carlos, we will stay here waiting for some athletes.
08:45Maybe we can talk to some of the representatives.
08:48We know Gabriel Rosillo from Cuba lost to Armenian Artur Aleksanyan, so maybe we can
08:54talk to him.
08:55And also the representative from Venezuela who was also having a match earlier today.
09:02We're waiting as well for Yusnelis Guzman, also lost to Indian player Vinesh Vinesh.
09:11So Carlos, we'll be here.
09:12If you need us, just call us.
09:14We'll be trying to talk to more of our own that are here at Paris 2024.
09:19Eduardo, before you go, I would like to ask you about what that girl, I think she was
09:25American, I'm not sure.
09:27She was telling you that French people are very friendly.
09:31Sometimes people in the world, they have the perception that French people are not friendly.
09:37Personally, my experience, I mean, I haven't traveled as much as you do, that you have
09:42to go from event to event and in a day you do, I don't know how many miles, but do you
09:48agree with her?
09:49Do you think French people are really friendly and they are really welcome to the world in
09:54this Olympics game?
09:57I think it might be controversial.
10:01I think they were very well prepared for the Olympic Games, because that girl that we interviewed,
10:07she said it's her seventh time here in Paris, and this time people are very, very friendly.
10:12That's been my experience as well, but our producer, Anna, that lives here, she said
10:15that this is very rare, it's not as common to see this, that much, that amount of friendliness,
10:22because usually in the rest of the year, it's not quite as friendly as it was during these
10:27three weeks of the Olympic Games.
10:30I don't want to say that too loud, because people might be hearing, but that is the truth.
10:37Yeah, but my perception is that everywhere I go, like a restaurant, people are really
10:45friendly to us, and if you don't speak the language, they try to understand you, maybe
10:50with English or Spanish.
10:52One more question I have for you, Eduardo, you are from Chile, tell us a little bit about
10:59Jasmani Acosta, he was born in Cuba, he's a good friend of Mijaín López, I heard they
11:07trained together like only a few months ago, how do Chilean people see that somebody who
11:14was born in Cuba is representing the country?
11:22For us, I'm going to talk about what I've heard in Chile while I was there, of course,
11:28it's a big honor, it's an elite athlete that comes to bring knowledge, to bring a level
11:37of professionalism that maybe we didn't have in that sport.
11:40There's another case, Santiago Fort from Cuba, he won in the Pan American Games, I think
11:46it was the marathon, I don't believe it was an athletic event, he won, he was from Cuba,
11:50it was a very emotional story as well, but Jasmani Acosta, he's the face of advertisement
11:57in Chile, he's very, he has penetrated the culture in Chile, people identify with him,
12:04so I would say people have been very receptive to him, he moved, as you know, in 2015, so
12:10he's been there for almost nine years, of course, I think he's 36 years old, so he moved
12:15very old, he still talks with a very thick Cuban accent, of course, but he loves Chile,
12:21that's what he said, and I believe people in Chile also, the love goes both ways, as they say.
12:30I mean, I understand and identify with him, I've been in the USA for more than 30 years,
12:36and as you can hear me, I still speak with a strong Argentine accent, thank you.
12:42Eduardo, we'll be back with you, we are going to be paying attention, and of course, we
12:48are going to have all the information following that fight, and tomorrow here in our people,
12:53we are going to have all the information. Thank you, Eduardo, good luck, long night
12:58in front of you is waiting. Thank you, Carlos.
13:04Okay, you know, we have a segment is trying to talk about athletes who did something
13:12amazing in those games, something that is amazing to believe that somebody can do that, because most
13:17of us, the normal people, cannot do it. We are going to talk today about Maria Caridad Colon.
13:23Maria Caridad, she's a javelin thrower, you know, when they throw the javelin, she was the first
13:30Latin American woman, she won a gold medal, and that's really important for our region. Let's see her story.
13:39The athlete Maria Caridad Colon was born in Baracoa, the first city of La Isla in 1958,
13:50and like almost all the children of her homeland, she preferred to bathe in the river, and of course,
13:56to eat the typical chocolate of the area. She arrived in the Russian capital at the age of 22,
14:02with the ambition of reaching the Olympic javelin final. On July 25 in 1980, she managed
14:09to reach Olympus, rather than just touch Olympus. From semi-unknown, she went on to become Latin
14:16America's first Olympic champion, and the first black woman to achieve such a high merit in the
14:22field and track throwing event. The greatest achievement of her gold medal was that she
14:27won it despite an injury with severe lumbar pain on her left side. The Cuban delegation's doctor
14:33Rodrigo Álvarez Cámbaras infiltrated her the day before the qualifiers and hours before the final.
14:40After warming up her muscles, she gave up the warm-up, shot it in the pre-millenaries, and only
14:45took one official shot, belly, for inclusion in the final. In the decisive event, she had to give
14:51her all on the first throw, knowing that the pain would come later. With 68.40 meters, she stunned
14:59thousands of spectators at the Luchinsky Stadium. Once retired from active sport,
15:05the double Pan American Games champion and the three-time Central American and Caribbean Games
15:11gold medalist María Caridad Colón held responsibilities in the Cuban Athletic
15:16Federation, as well as in the Cuban Ministry of Sport. Until 2020, when she was elected
15:22member of the International Olympic Committee, a position she currently holds. What a few know
15:28about her is that she is the great-granddaughter of Félix Ruénez, the man who welcomed Cuban
15:34national hero José Martí when he landed back in Cuba for the 1895 war against Spain.
15:41That is more sacred than my Olympic gold, said a proud and a smiling Colón.
15:46Let's keep talking about Cuban who did history here in the Olympic Games. In this case,
15:51we are going to talk something not far away, Tokyo 2020, Sergey Torres,
15:56Fernando Jorge, who were in kayak, and they did something amazing. Look in this story.
16:04When our Cuban canoeists Sergey Torres and Fernando Jorge won gold and set an Olympic
16:10record in the 1,000-meter kayak event, in a time of 3 minutes, 24 seconds, and 995,000th of a second,
16:20they paddled an average of 17.7 kilometers per hour.
16:26At this speed, they would have made it from Havana to Cartagena in a total of 58 hours and two and a half days.
16:34No, we won't make the easy and bad joke about how long it would take them to get Miami because it was one more feat of our people.
16:41We hope that Cuba can get another gold medal this evening. But now let's go with Charlie.
16:46Charlie has the fun of the day. Who is that person? Go Charlie, tell us.
16:52You can write it, I'm going to write it.
16:54I'm going to write it, I'm going to write it, I'm going to write it, I'm going to write it.
16:57We hope that Cuba can get another gold medal this evening, but now let's go with Charlie.
17:06Charlie has the fun of the day. Who is that person? Go Charlie, tell us.
17:11Hi Carlos, how are you? One of the most fun part of the Olympics and something that's
17:17gone viral on social media are the Olympic pins. And today the fan of the day is Brad
17:23Frank, a man who's been to 11 Olympics trading Olympic pins with a lot of people. This is
17:29his story. Brad, tell me a little bit what you're doing
17:32here. Hi Carlos, I'm traveling across Paris and
17:38we come for the Olympic Games. This is my 11th Olympic Games and we come here, go to
17:43the events, eat the food, meet the people and trade pins.
17:46And how did you start off with this idea? My friend bought hundreds of thousands of
17:51pins from the USOC, Olympic Committee, in 1996 and we've been trading them ever since.
17:58And you told me off camera that you've been to 11 Olympics. Which one was the first one
18:01and which one was the most memorable? Well, the first one was Atlanta and they're
18:06all very memorable. We trade with different people, we meet different people from all
18:10over the world and it's like picking a favorite child. I don't have a favorite child.
18:15And tell me a little bit how it is that you give away the pins and then people send you
18:19some pins through mail. Well, what I do is we have so many pins and
18:23we're trying to spread the word of pins and I give them out and I ask people to trade
18:28them and if they trade them, they can keep some of them and I can keep some of them and
18:31they can mail me whatever ones they're not crazy about.
18:33Do you have any message for everyone, for everyone watching?
18:38Please be peaceful and be kind and loving and enjoy your neighbor and just enjoy life.
18:46Well, there you have it, Carlos. My favorite segment, the fan of the day.
18:49This is my first Olympic Games. I know you've been to a few, but now my new mission is to
18:54go around and trade these pins like Brad Frank told me to do.
18:58Back to you, Carlos. Thank you, Charlie. Charlie's having a great
19:04time. Let's keep talking about Cuban who are making history in those games.
19:12But in this case, let's talk about not no Cuba, I'm sorry.
19:16Let's talk about the last work, the last Olympic. They were in Tokyo, but they were crazy.
19:22Nothing to do with here, with Paris. Remember, it was the COVID, so there were no people
19:28on the stands. It was very quiet. Let's see what's happened there.
19:33In 2020, the Olympic Games will be held for the second time in Tokyo.
19:41The date was set between July 24th and August 9th, but in the first months of that year,
19:48new words were in the news all over the world. Coronavirus, pandemic, COVID.
19:53Soon, the planet came to a standstill. Australia and Canada anticipated they were pulling out
19:58of the Games. Great Britain followed. The Japanese government and the International
20:03Olympic Committee agreed to postpone the event for one year while keeping the name Tokyo
20:082020. The new dates were announced July 23rd to
20:12August 8th, 2021. The world was racing against time to discover
20:18an effective vaccine that would allow and return to normality.
20:22But the discovery of new strains of COVID-19 led to new international restrictions and
20:28confinements. The Olympic Games were once again in jeopardy.
20:31First, it was announced that foreign travelers would be banned from entering Japan, but then
20:37a more drastic decision was taken. Although the Games were finally held on the
20:42agreed date, all competitions were held behind closed doors.
20:45Tokyo would not have the party it deserved. The cost of delaying the Olympic Games for
20:50a year was around $5.8 billion for the maintenance of in-use facilities.
20:57The catastrophe would have occurred if the pandemic had persisted, since the cancellation
21:02of the Games would have cost Tokyo almost seven times as much.
21:06Around $40.5 billion between operating expenses and the loss of tourism.
21:12Beyond this negative note, Tokyo 2020 would go down in history as the Green Olympics.
21:18The medals were made from donated electronic waste and cell phones to raise public awareness
21:24of environmental impact and sustainability. The podiums, Olympic Village furniture, and
21:30storage relay apparel were also made from recycled material.
22:00Only staff and coaches, you know, supporting us. A lot different as opposed to now in Paris,
22:06right? We have a lot of fans. The atmosphere has changed so much and it honestly gives us
22:13more confidence and it makes us happier, honestly, because seeing the fans there
22:19supporting us, I think is what really pushes the athlete there to the next level, right?
22:22How is your experience here? Your speciality is 800-meter backstroke.
22:28Yeah.
22:29How did you do?
22:31I did okay. I think my work didn't reflect as much as I thought it would,
22:37but I am still happy with the results. You know, making it here was already a really big effort
22:42and I know it's not going to be my last Olympics, so I'm very much looking forward to the rest of my
22:48work.
22:49Julio Cilio in LA for four years. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We ran out of time.
22:55Thank you for being with us. See you all tomorrow. Bye-bye. Adios, amigos.
23:25Bye.