MEXICO CITY, March 17, 2022 – The experience of former athlete Rodolfo Gómez Orozco, who represented the country in the 70s and 80s, will be available to the Mexican athletics team, specifically for those of the long-distance tests, in which there are 25 athletes.

OLYMPIAN EXPERTISE Rodolfo, who at the Olympic Games in Moscow 1980 finished in the 6th position, will train the young promises of athletics from his country, at the Mexican Olympic Sports Center (CDOM), the venue where he builds up his dreams as an athlete, those same ones that led him to be the Tokyo International Marathon champion in 1981, and also the Golden Marathon in Athens, the Rotterdam and the Oregon Marathon in 1982 winner.

MOTIVATING THE YOUNG GENERATIONS For Gómez, motivation is important and that is what he inculcates, wearing the colours of the flag in the uniform and having the accreditation of the Mexican Olympic Committee is an honour and merit that must be earned, but at the same time, the desire that young people have to get to represent their country is what motivates him. “Everyone has the idea of getting to represent Mexico, they are young and in the long-distance tests the process is lengthy, it takes up to three years for them to start seeing the results of times and qualifying marks at the international level”, a challenge that the coach assumes, aiming to classify Mexico to the largest number of events and return the country to the level it has years ago in long-distances tests, "When the boys come looking for someone to train them, that speaks of their interest and it has given me good results, it says that they are determined to seek to improve”. Insight are the Central American and Caribbean Games in El Salvador, the Santiago Pan American Games in Chile and the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, and as he says, "there is no time to lose."

COMING BACK HOME Rodolfo was away from his country for seven years, training athletes as important as Gladys Tejeda and Christian Pacheco, current Pan American champions, putting into practise everything he learned as an athlete and obtaining more learning as a coach, now, all that knowledge he will deliver to the 25 athletes who come from states such as Michoacán, the State of Mexico and Hidalgo, among others, "I feel very comfortable, even today I continue helping a group in Peru remotely, I was there for seven years and I never stopped cooperating here (in Mexico)," said Rodolfo, who also has a degree in Physical Education.

MEXICAN HISTORY FACTS The 70's and 80's were the golden age of long-distance athletics in Mexico, where the main marathons in the world were won and in which athletes such as Germán Silva, Andrés Espinoza, Isidro Rico, Isaac García, Benjamín Paredes and Adriana Fernández shone at the international level, even though Adriana, Rodolfo's wife, after more than 20 years, is still the only Mexican and Latin American who has won the New York marathon. Currently, and according to Rodolfo, there are a couple of boys who can be like the aforementioned ones in the short term, the others are in the initiation stage and are doing well, but he emphasizes that this discipline is for young people with a certain maturity, because the type of physical and mental work, as general success in a competition, depends by 60% on the psychological part and 40% on the physical part.