“Long way” by Verónica Toro for her historic classification in Tokyo 2021 in oars

Puerto Rican T-shirt Verónica Toro is accustomed, like many young people of her generation, to being involved in multiple tasks and simultaneous commitments, and with a thousand things occupying her mind. But getting to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics while in the middle of his medical studies at Stanford University in California, is a story worthy of a gold medal.

Much more so when the COVID-19 virus pandemic disrupted all its curricula and training in 2020.

Toro, 26 years old, made history on Friday by becoming the first Puerto Rican woman to qualify for an Olympics in the sport of rowing, getting one of the five places that were at stake in the singles category women’s open weight (single oars), at the pre-Olympic held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With her achievement, the young native of San Juan will be at the Tokyo Games the first representation of the sport of the Puerto Rican rowing in an Olympics since Juan Felix competed in Seoul in 1988, according to the historian Carles Uriarte.

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

Therefore, reviewing the events of last year, and even the last-minute hurdles in the qualifier that culminated on Friday in Brazil, have no comparison with the excitement of getting in the waters of Rio the ticket to Tokyo.

“It was very exciting in the middle of the race … it was very hard. It was supposed to be three days. The second leg (repechaje) was yesterday (Friday) and today (Saturday) was the final, but for COVID-19 again , things changed and the health minister here decreed an order that no event could be held yesterday after 5:00 pm And they brought everything forward for yesterday afternoon, “Toro said by telephone a The New Day.

That being the case, Toro had to do three races in two days, two of them the same Friday at 9:20 a.m., and the other just six hours later.

“Everything was left on the track. And when it was over, it was a tremendous thrill to be able to be in the top five. When I got to the spring to disembark my coach was here, I saw him and I said, ‘we did it, we did it’; and we both burst into tears, “he recalled of the moment he lived with Peruvian coach Francisco Viacava.

Viacava, by the way, also trained his compatriot Álvaro Torres, who also qualified for singles rowing on Friday and will represent his country in Tokyo.

Now, with a ticket for Tokyo in hand, Veronica said she hopes to participate in a couple of world cups in preparation for the Olympics, as well as barracks to perform a height training stage to improve her aerobic condition. With a concrete plan like going to the Olympics, you can be more focused than what the pandemic allowed in 2020 when everything was interrupted.

“He hasn’t competed since 2019. It was hard. It’s been a long road training. I tried to qualify for the 2016 Olympics (River) while studying at MIT and I didn’t get it. At that time I didn’t spend much time rowing. “But here I promised to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics,” he recalled.

Committed to sport and its studies

“I started at Stanford School of Medicine in 2016, after graduating from MIT, and I was there for the first two years (California). Those first two years of medicine, the curriculum is therefore studies. I did and trained at a high-performance center that was established in California, and I trained there with people from the U.S. team for a year and a half, until they closed the center. in Miami where I currently train “.

It was after representing Puerto Rico in the Central American and Caribbean Games Barranquilla 2018, where he came fifth in the final of his modality, which he met in Viacava and with his help that same year he went to a qualifier where he get his pass 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 it was for all athletes.

“This qualifier was supposed to be last year but COVID came and it wasn’t given. It got more complicated I didn’t know where the competition was going to be, and I didn’t know if there were going to be Olympics. I didn’t know nothing. I was forced to go back to medical school, “he recalled, clarifying that while training for these events, he has paused his studies.

“The reason I had paused them is because all I have left are all the rotations … I have to work in the hospital for many hours. I went and was last year several months doing this to move forward (after the postponement of the Olympics). I even did the rotation in surgery, where I was sometimes run for 16 hours in the hospital. You can imagine you don’t have time to train. “

Faced with uncertainty over COVID-19 and the fact that there was still no set date for the rowing pre-Olympic, Toro opted to pause his training and continue his studies. Something that was not in his coach’s plans.

“It was a big risk I took, that my coach accepted it because he didn’t have another one left. But it wasn’t what he wanted. But it was done and then I went back to training back in time in late September. complete, with two or three sessions a day, seven days a week, five to eight hours a day. Since then it has been hard, hard, hard, with a clear and focused mind. It didn’t matter if there was COVID or not. “

Praise of his Rowing Federation

This perseverance in his coaching work is what in the opinion of Miguel Davila, president of the Rowing Federation of Puerto Rico, made the difference.

“The key to success was that he was able to keep working. That success is obviously important for the Federation, for the Olympic Committee (Copur), for Puerto Rico and for Veronica as an athlete and as a person.” , highlighted Davila. “Veronica’s effort was titanic, training, studying, doing 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 has been very good, flexible with that of going in and out of rotations. A special school. I come back and start Emergency Science on September 20,” he said. Once his residency is complete, Toro hopes to enter the cardiothoracic surgery residency program.

“I would like to do the pediatric specialty. And eventually I would like to return to Puerto Rico,” said Toro, who as an athlete, also aims to re-represent the island at a Central American Games and the Caribbean, but with one condition.

A graduate of San Jose Academy in Guaynabo, before leaving for the United States for her college studies, Toro said she will only go to the 2022 CAC Games if they are eventually held in Puerto Rico. At the same time the island is considering submitting its candidacy.