BOGOTÁ, January 18, 2021 - A few days have passed and it has been really difficult to write these lines. I did not know Álvaro as an athlete, because at that time I was not even in the deepest thoughts of my parents, but I did know him as a ‘Glory of Colombian Sports’ a simple man who never stopped running, even after his retirement and his advanced age, he was seen running through the park that is right in front of the apartment where he lived. His long white hair framed a face that despite the years was always jovial, always with a smile. A man who enjoyed his solitude, rebel with a cause and who could not miss a beer after lunch.
For me, he is the first of the four musketeers in long-distance athletics in Colombia, followed by Víctor Mora, Domingo Tibaduiza and Silvio Salazar, the latter three, who followed the path that Álvaro opened and became the big four in my country. He was the first foreigner to win the San Blas Half Marathon in Coamo, Puerto Rico, the first Colombian to win the San Silvestre International Race, the first Colombian to achieve three gold medals in the same Olympic cycle event - and he did it twice, and was considered the best middle distance runner in the world. In addition, he won the most important marathon event in the world, The Boston Marathon, in 1971, becoming the first Latin American to climb to the top of the podium of the oldest marathon in the world. A legacy that, sadly, many have forgotten. As is always the case, the triumphs of sports heroes are remembered after they die.
Álvaro Mejía Flórez is and will continue to be considered, without a doubt, one of the greatest middle and long-distance athletes of all time in Colombia. With his titles and records, he managed to write his name not only in this country but in the world’s sports history at a time when support for the athletes in Colombia was almost nil, in a time when technology did not seem to appear, a time in which athletes ran more for the love of their country, with the pride of wearing a t-shirt with COLOMBIA written on the back and for a trophy that sometimes weighed more than the same luggage and not for money. Álvaro was born in Medellín, on May 15, 1940 and died in Bogotá on January 12 at the age of 80 due to a cancer.
MESSAGES FROM THE OTHER THREE MUSKETEERS
It is very difficult to speak when the heart is in pieces due to the departure to heaven of a friend, but Víctor, Domingo and Silvio expressed in a few words their feelings.
“One of my biggest opponents is gone, but more than a rival, a friend, great athlete, good person. We shared many competitions throughout the world, in the course of our sporting life we experienced many joys and also sorrows such as our participation in the 1972 Munich Olympics; after several months of training our result was very sad and we came to think of not returning to the country until some time had passed and the country had forgotten about our performance,” Víctor Mora expressed in tears. A man with few friends, but who with pride called Álvaro a 'friend'.
“There is much to say about Álvaro. For me he was the reference of my generation, teacher and motivator. He was the one who, thanks to his rebellious character with a very good cause, inspired dreams and helped to make them to come true. My admiration and gratitude for this formidable human being,” these are the words of Domingo Tibaudiza.
“Out of the three, I was the one who shared the least with him, because we were from different generations, but without a doubt he is one of the references that those of my time had. After our retirement was when we could be closer. He was a man of one piece, he said things as he thought them, simple and a good friend of his friends. He liked to dance. I also remember that he liked to have one or two beers after his lunch, he always went to the same store that is near his apartment, where he would sit and talk with whoever it was, then he would go to his apartment." said Silvio Salazar.
HIS SPORTS CAREER
Álvaro Mejía Flórez began his sports career in 1961 when he participated in the Manizales National Championship and in just one year he obtained his first international title, when he won the 1,500m gold medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Kingston. His triumphs increased year after year; in 1963 he became the South American champion also in the 1,500m in the event held in Cali, Colombia.
In 1964 as part of his preparation to participate in the Tokyo Olympic Games, he registered his first South American record in the 5,000m. He achieved it at the Anoeta Stadium, in San Sebastián, Spain, where he finished with 13min, 53.04sec, just 8sec from the world record held by Australian Ron Clarke.
In 1965 he became the first Colombian athlete to win three gold medals in the same event of the Olympic cycle, as he stood on the podium of the 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m at the Bolivarian Games held in Quito, Ecuador and in 1966 he would repeat the feat in the same three tests, but this time at the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
In that same year, in February, he became the first foreigner to participate in the San Blas Half Marathon, which is run in Coamo, Puerto Rico, being also champion of that same edition. In April and in Medellín, he became the owner of the South American record of 3,000m (8min, 12sec). In September in Bucaramanga he registered the record of the 10,000m with 29min, 10sec, 04ths. In October he won the 5,000m and 10,000m events of the second pre-Olympic week held in Mexico City and closed the year on December 31st with the title of the San Silvestre International Race, in São Paulo, Brazil.
All these titles led him to be considered as the best middle-distance athlete in the world in that year 1966.
A few years later in 1971, he was the first Colombian to win the Boston Marathon, in the United States, considered the most important race in the world.
WHY HE DIDN’T WIN AN OLYMPIC MEDAL?
Sports Journalist Alberto Galvis highlighted in his article: “Psychological support, this was a key point for Álvaro Mejía Flórez to fail in his endeavor to be an Olympic medalist, even with the necessary conditions to achieve it, because, before obtaining the two victories in the Pre-Olympic Week in Mexico City, he was a stranger, and after this he became number one in the world, watched over by all his opponents, which encrust in his mind tons of fears, which he did not know how to banish. Likewise, the injuries undermined his psychological resistance and could influence in the slowness of his recovery. When he arrived in Mexico City in 1968 to compete in the 10.000 meters of the Olympics, "I just wanted this nightmare to end soon," he recalled. His nervousness was such that he made a "false start". At the end, he finished tenth. He confessed that when he crossed the finish line he rested from the trauma that had accompanied him for the past two years.
ANECDOTES
During the Micro Olympiad (1966) prior to the Mexico 68 'Olympic Games, Álvaro had an excellent participation, defeating Mohamed Gammoudi (Tunisia) in the 5,000m, and Gaston Roelants (Belgium) in the 10,000m, the two best in the world at that time “When I beat the best middle-distance runners in the world, in Mexico 1966, I returned to Colombia, and they put on my shoulders the candidacy to win the gold medal; two years later, at the Olympic Games in Mexico they left me alone, he once recalled, with sadness and anger,” wrote Alberto Galvis recently in an article published by the Colombian Olympic Committee.
“At Mejía’s times there was only one carbon track in Bogotá, at the National University, intended exclusively for the student community. Many times, Mejía "sneaked" over a wall or fence, to get onto the track and do his training. On countless occasions he was detained by the guards, who took him out like a thief, because he did not have a card from that institution. And he was the great hope of South American athletics, for Mexico 1968.” Alberto Galvis.
Finally, Ciro Solano Hurtado, former President of the Colombian Athletics Federation and General Secretary of the Colombian Olympic Committee, shared these words: “I admired him for his tenacity, courage and bravery, but also for his controversial personality, which led him to collect in the same way, supporters and detractors. Loved by many and hated by some, but never ignored, Álvaro Mejía Flórez was a contestant for excellence, because calmly he could send to hell whoever he wanted, as when the mayor of Boston, United States, sent someone to call him to congratulate him for the victory in the 1971 marathon, and Mejía told the messenger: ‘The important one is me, if he wants to greet me, he should come here.’”
