Paola Longoria isn’t Eva’s little sister/cousin/niece. You may have never heard of her, but the 26 year-old is probably the best Mexican athlete today – with feats comparable to (if not greater than) those of Hugo Sanchez, Ana Guevara, and Julio Cesar Chavez.
One could say that Longoria is the Messi of racquetball, though that might be unfair to her, since Messi hasn’t been elected best player of the world in the last 2 years, and Paola has. In fact, she’s finished #1 in women’s racquetball for five of the past six seasons.
With 48 Tier 1 tournaments victories under her belt (the racquetball Grand Slams), 5 world championships in different categories, and a record as the first player to hold both the Singles and Doubles Racquetball Federation World Titles at the same time, to say Longoria is killing it is to put it mildly.
She was also undefeated for almost 3 and a half years (May 2011 –October 2014) before losing to American Rhonda Rajsich. But then she got right back up on that winning streak, and hasn’t lost in almost a year now.
The petite Mexican star is currently competing in three categories in the 2015 Pan Am games, where she will most likely face Rhonda Rajsich again, (who she defeated in the last Pan Am games final – and several others).
With her unprecedented domination on the hardwood, it’s really no surprise that she was Mexico’s flag bearer during the opening ceremony of the games.
Follow Pao on instagram here, and don’t sleep on this dynamo.