Perhaps for National Sports Commission (Conade) president Alfredo Castillo no medals would’ve been better than at least a bronze one. The unanimous victory of boxer Misael Rodríguez in the 75 kilo (super middleweight) division, however, gave Mexico the certainty of at least one medal by going into semifinals. In boxing, there’s gold, silver, and two bronze medals, so win or lose, Misael Rodríguez will get a medal.
But also, immediately after boxer Rodríguez’s win, Castillo posted on his Twitter account that “our athletes have given their all and today Misael is rewarded.”
There was an immediate irate reaction from Mexican Boxing Federation (Femexbox) president Ricardo Contreras asking Castillo not to “hang the medal around his neck” won by Misael and he accused Castillo of being the Femexbox’s worst enemy during the preparation period.
“Let’s make it clear that the medal Misael Rodríguez won is his, not of the Mexican Olympic Committee (COM), not of the National Sports Commission or the Femexbox,” Contreras said.
But if the three Olympic sports organizing committees sponsored the 126 member Mexican delegation to Rio, why should the credit now go to a lowly boxer like Rodríguez?
The answer dates back to 2015 when the Mexican boxing team was gearing up to go to Qatar to compete in the International Association of Boxing (IAB), which handles all amateur contests to organize the qualifying fights for Rio.
Just before that, Alfredo Castillo had been appointed to administer Conade by President Enrique Peña Nieto. Conade is in charge of distributing the government’s funds — allotted to the Public Education Secretariat’s budget — to all the amateur sports federations for subsidized training expenditures.
As Castillo arrived at Conade, as the Mexican saying goes, he entered “with the machete out of the sheath” demanding proper funds accountability from all of the sports federations in the Conade budget.
Castillo immediately hit a brick-wall with the basketball, volleyball, boxing and swimming federations, whose accountability of previous funds was in shambles, and Ricardo Contreras couldn’t come up with proper documentation to justify the meager budget they were allotted.
Conade’s Castillo was there to clean up house and immediately withheld funding for the Femexbox.
By then, an enthusiastic group of amateur boxers, Misael Rodríguez among them, dreamt with competing in Doha, Qatar to fulfill their dream of participating in the Rio Olympics.
But there was no money to go to Qatar so they came up with the idea of panhandling with the general public to see if they could come up with the funds to pay for their expenditures.
And panhandle they did in the popular “pesero” buses, out on the streets and in public places until they saved enough to go to the qualifiers.
When panhandling, the amateur Mexican boxing team wore their worn out training uniforms to identify themselves to the public as bona fide boxers while holding signs that Conade had pulled the rug from under the Femexbox, hence from under them. They said so in posters they carried in their begging efforts, which eventually paid off and to Qatar they went and those who could qualified, among them the only survivor of the boxing team, Misael Rodríguez, known as “El Chino.”
Ricardo Contreras credited “El Chino” with his own effort.
“This is his very own personal effort, but now it doesn’t matters, because the results are in. Time will place everyone in their own place.”
Castillo also had a rift with the Mexican Olympic Committee — which also had raised funds to make ends meet as they did not get their full funds from Conade — over uniforms in which the brand name was patched over, particularly in boxing and weight lifting. The uniforms they wore were nothing like the Hugo Boss 14,000 pesos ($767) suits that the Conade executives were wearing at the opening ceremony.
It’s always been said that Mexican medals have come due to a sportsman’s dream, as was the case with horseman Humberto Mariles in 1948 when he went to London even against the president’s will. What we have now is nothing else than history repeating itself.
“El Chino” will participate in the semifinals against Uzbekistan’s Bektemir Melikuziev Thursday at 1:15 p.m., surely a fight Mexico will be watching. Whether “El Chino” wins or loses, the hero’s welcome is assured.
As for Conade’s Alfredo Castillo, well, very soon history will take care of him.
