Mexico’s athletic commission, known by its initials CONADE, caught a lot of flack at this year’s Olympics. Even though the country’s Rio 2016 delegation garnered the second-highest medal count in over twenty years, Mexicans were furious at the CONADE’s perceived corruption and mismanagement of public resources. Now it seems the nightmare has continued into the Paralympics, where 71 Mexican athletes are competing for gold from September 7-18.
Over the weekend one of Mexico’s most prominent Paralympians, Doramitzi González, published a tearful video to her Twitter account in which she accused Mexican officials of blowing her participation in the 4×50 freestyle relay. The reason? Apparently they showed up late to register the team for the event.
González, who gave up a scholarship at Mexico’s Universidad del Valle de México to train for the games, was clearly devastated by the error: “This hurts a lot… we were going to fight for a medal and this sort of thing can’t happen. You train so much and they shatter your dreams for something as stupid as showing up late.”
To date, the swimmer has the highest medal count of any Mexican Olympic or Paralympic athlete, with 11 total medals racked up since the Sydney Games of 2000. Regarding the CONADE’s carelessness she went right to the point in placing the blame: “This is what happens when you bring people who don’t know what they’re doing, and we lost a medal for it.”
At the time of publishing, Mexico’s Paralympic delegation had already picked up seven medals at the Rio Games, in spite of the CONADE’s ongoing amateur-hour spectacle. Luckily for González, she will still have the opportunity to boost her medal count in the 100m backstroke and the 100m and 50m freestyle events.