“Long way” by Verónica Toro for her historic qualification to Tokyo 2021 rowing

Puerto Rican t-shirt Verónica Toro is used like many young people of her generation, to be involved in multiple tasks and simultaneous commitments and with a thousand things that occupy her mind. But qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics while in the middle of medical studies at Stanford University in California is a story worthy of a gold medal.

Especially since the pandemic of the COVID-19 virus interrupted all its programs and training in 2020.

Toro, 26 years old, made history on Friday, becoming the first woman in Puerto Rico to qualify for the rowing Olympics, earning one of five places competing in the women’s single lightweight event (single rowing) in the pre-Olympic Games. the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With her achievements, the young woman from San Juan will be at the Tokyo Games the first representation that the Puerto Rican sport of rowing has at the Olympics since Juan Félix competed in Seoul in 1988, according to the historian Carlos Uriarte.

A 2016 graduate of biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Toro saw her plans upset in 2020, when the pandemic broke out on the world stage.

So, looking back at last year’s events and even the last-minute pitfalls in qualifying that culminated in Brazil on Friday, they have no comparison with the excitement of getting a ticket to Tokyo in Rio waters.

“It was very interesting in the middle of the race … it was very difficult. it had to be three days. The play-off (repechage) was yesterday (Friday) and today (Saturday) was final, but because of COVID-19 again, things have changed and the Minister of Health here has decreed an order that does not have place yesterday after 5:00 pm And they brought everything forward yesterday afternoon “, said Toro by phone The new day.

Thus, Toro had to run three races in two days, two of them on the same Friday at 9:20 in the morning, and the other only six hours later.

“Everything was left on the field. And when it was over, it was a great thrill to be in the top five. When I got to the dock to disembark, my coach was there, I saw him and I said, “I did it, I did it”; and we both started to cry “, he remembered about the moment when he lived with the Peruvian coach Francisco Viacava.

In fact, Viacava trained his compatriot Álvaro Torres, who also qualified for simple rowing on Friday and will represent his country in Tokyo.

Now with a ticket to Tokyo in hand, Verónica said she hopes to compete in several World Cups in preparation for the Olympics, as well as in the garrison for a height training stage to improve her aerobic condition. With a concrete plan like going to the Olympics, you can be more focused than the pandemic allowed in 2020, when everything was interrupted.

“There has been no competition since 2019. It was tough. The training trip was long. I tried to qualify for the 2016 Olympics (Rio) while studying at MIT and I couldn’t. I didn’t paddle much then. But there I made a commitment that I would qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, ”he recalled.

Engaged in sports and her studies

“I started at Stanford Medical School in 2016, after graduating from MIT and spending the first two years there (California). The first two years of medicine, the program is then studies. I did it and I trained at a high-performance center that was established in California and I trained there with people from the United States team for a year and a half, until the center was closed. There I had to move to Miami where I am currently training “.

After representing Puerto Rico at the 2018 Barranquilla Games in Central America and the Caribbean, where he finished fifth in the final of his modality, he met Viacava and, with his help, in the same year, he went to a qualification where he obtained the permit for the Pan American Games in Lima in 2019. In Lima he finished sixth in the A final.

His pace, on the other hand, was interrupted in 2020, as for all athletes.

“This qualifier should have been last year, but COVID came and it didn’t happen. It was more complicated because it was not known where the competition would be and it was not known if the Olympics would take place. I didn’t know anything. I was forced to return to medical school, ”she recalled, noting that while preparing for these events, she suspended her studies.

“The reason I put the hiatus is that all I have left are all the rotations … I have to work in the hospital for many hours. I was and spent a few months doing this last year to move on (after the Olympics were postponed). I even did the rotation in the operation, where I was sometimes in the hospital for 16 consecutive hours. You can imagine that you don’t have time to train “.

Faced with the uncertainty caused by COVID-19 and the fact that it was not yet a precise date for pre-Olympic rowing, Toro chose to interrupt his training and continue his studies. Something that wasn’t in his coach’s plans.

“I took a big risk for my coach to accept him because he had no other option. But it wasn’t what he wanted. But it was done and then I came back at the end of September to train again full time, with two or three sessions a day, seven days a week, five to eight hours a day. Since then he has been tough, tough, tough, with a clear and focused mind. It didn’t matter if COVID existed or not “.

Praise from your Federation

This perseverance in his training activity is what, in the opinion of Miguel Dávila, the president of the Rowing Federation of Puerto Rico, made the difference.

“The key to success was being able to keep working. This achievement is important, obviously for the Federation, for the Olympic Committee (Copur), for Puerto Rico and for Verónica as an athlete and as a person “, Dávila underlined. “Veronica’s effort was titanic, training, studying, achieving both.”

This effort will have no break for Toro, who said that after the Olympics, he is already scheduled to return to the academy in September.

“Stanford was very good, flexible with the entry and exit of the rotations. A special school. I will return and start Emergenciología on September 20 “, he said. Upon completion of his residency, Toro hopes to enter the cardiothoracic surgery residency program.

“I would like to do the pediatric specialty. And finally I would like to return to Puerto Rico “, said Toro, who, as an athlete, also aims to represent the island again in the Games of Central America and the Caribbean, but with one condition.

A graduate of the San José Academy in Guaynabo, before leaving for the United States for college, Toro said she will only go to the CAC 2022 Games if they eventually take place in Puerto Rico. At this time, the island is considering submitting its application.