The World Athletics Federation announced on Sunday that the young Ecuadorian walker, Glenda Morejón, is one of five finalists for the "World Rising Star Award 2019" women's prize, which will be presented to the winner, and will be announced at the IAAF Gala , which will take place in Munich on November 23, 2019.
I was in La Coruña, on the occasion of the Cantones Grand Prix, an important leg of the IAAF Race Walking Challenge, when the very young Ecuadorian surprisingly won the 20km walk with a mark of 1:25:29, the best performance in the world ever in the U20 category and absolute record (and obviously also in the U20 category) of South America.
It seemed to be in a dream on the Cantones when this tiny women dressed all in blue with bib #33 navigated without any difficulty through the three Chinese titles (Liu Hong, Yang Jiayu and Qieyang Shenijie) and the Brazilian Erica de Sena.
But where are she going? I thought aloud as Maurizio Damilano passed by me.
His brother Sandro, on the other hand, was about thirty meters after arriving with the stopwatch in his hand together with Massimo Stano's coach, Patrizio Parcesepe, who also did an incredible race; both coaches rolled their eyes in disbelief.
It can't be, I said to Maurizio, it reminds me of another tiny women of gold that in 1997 on the Athens track at some point forced the pace and left the others at about twenty meters.
It was then that I heard for the first time from TV commentators and other athletes that "Where are she going?" that was returning to my mind. I was wondering if it would end in the same way.
Impossible, I said to myself: the Italian gold tiny women, who looks at us from the sky today, was already a well-known name in the world race walk for some years.
This little girl dressed in blue and with dark glasses came out of almost nothing.
However, she already won the gold of Nairobi 2017 (on 5.000m track walk) and the bronze of Tampere 2018 (on 10.000m track walk).
Too early, at her debut in the 20km, to take off from the podium those three red fury, one against the other armed to the teeth, who were deciding who was the empress of the Republic of China.
At 18km I understood that La Coruna, as always, that day would offer its public a very special day. He had already done so on June 6, 2015 when one of the three belligerents of today had stopped the clock in 1:24:38 (world record).
Qieyang was out of the game for an after-effects of an allergy, and Liu Hong and Yang Jiayu would start the final lap to decide who is in charge in China.
Not at all!
Just in the last kilometer this blue tiny girl with impressive ease moves away and closes in 1:25:29. Canceled Anisiya Kornikova from the history of the 20km U20 !
Glenda Morejon recently moved to Cuenca, the home town of Jefferson Pérez, to be coached technically by Andrés Chocho (his wife's trainer, Erica De Sena, among others) and with the goal set for the 2020 Olympic Games.
With Glenda Morejón they are also nominated for the World Rising Star Award 2019: the Jamaican Britany Anderson (U20 world record in the 110H), the Ethiopian Lemlem Hailu (leader U20 in the 1,500m), the Ukrainian Yaroslava Mahuchikh (holder of the world record U20 and silver medal in Doha, in the high jump) and the American Sha'Carri Richardson (holder of the U20 world record in the 100m and 200m).