Puerto Rican T-shirt Verónica Toro makes history by qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics

Puerto Rican Verónica Toro made history this Friday by becoming the first female to play in the discipline of rowing to qualify for the Olympics.

The news was highlighted by the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee on its social networks.

Toro participated in the pre-Olympic that started precisely this Friday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Toro previously represented Puerto Rico at the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games in Barranquilla, when he finished fifth in the final event of a pair of short oars. He also reached the final of the same event at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru in 2019, when he came in sixth.

The sports historian Carlos Uriarte stressed for his part that Toro classified Tokyo to reach fifth place in the single rowing event in Rio, making it the first representative of the Puerto Rican rowing Olympics since 1988 with Juan Felix. Incidentally she will be the first woman in this sport.

At the time Puerto Rico has 23 athletes classified, 18 of them women counting the 12 members of the National Women’s Basketball Team, which also made history by winning its first Olympic ticket.

Adriana Díaz (table tennis); Wesley Vázquez, Andrés Arroyo and Ryan Sánchez (athletics, 800 meters); Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (athletics, 100 meters hurdles); Enrique “Quique” Figueroa and Gretchen Ortiz (candles); Lauren Billys (equestrian next to her Purdy specimen); Franklin Gómez (fight); Victoria STAMBAUGH (taekwondo); and the 12 members of the feminine Selection of basketball, were the 22 boricuas previously classified, to which Toro is added now.