Another great day for our Puerto Ricans in San Salvador 2023! There are already 86 medals: 20 gold, 25 silver and 41 bronze.
It was in fencing that the Puerto Rican delegation received the twentieth gold medal. The fencers César Colón, Carlos Padua, Jonathan Lugo and the substitute, Rafael “Fito” Western, defeated Venezuela 45-43 to become the team foil champions.
This is the first gold medal in the men’s branch, in previous editions they had won four bronze medals: Havana 1982, Santiago de los Caballeros 1986, Cartagena 2006 and Mayagüez 2010 and a silver medal in San Salvador 2002. As a fact , the coach of the national team, Marlón Carrión, was a member of the team in 2002 and today he achieves gold as a manager.
They beat Venezuela.
Naishka Román added two bronze medals to Puerto Rico, from the sub-site of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
In the -68 kilos category, Benítez won a bronze medal after losing 2-1 against the Dominican Bernardo Pie in the semifinals. In the first match of the day, the Puerto Rican defeated Honduran Yiektsack Vicente 2-1.
For his part, Román, the -67 kilos competitor, was left with the bronze for losing to the Haitian in the semifinals 2-0. The taekwondo athlete secured that medal early on by winning her first bout against Yosselyn Molina of Honduras, 2-0.
In addition, chess players Danitza Vázquez and Natasha Morales added two bronze medals for Puerto Rico on Thursday afternoon in the “blitz” or lightning event.
Vázquez played on the first board and Morales did the same on the second board. The “blitz” is a lightning play that has to be accomplished between 3 to 5 minutes. The fastest player wins the game.
In this way, they give continuity to the work done on Wednesday night where Vázquez won silver on the first fast board and Natasha Morales on the second fast board the bronze.
Meanwhile, in the discipline of water polo it went to the final, as the men’s team defeated Mexico 11-8. Puerto Rico started the first period tied 2-2 with the Mexicans. In the second half they took the lead 4-2. This advantage was extended in the third period with four goals for each team, 8-6.
The Puerto Ricans managed to support the comeback with a final result of 11-8 in the last game time. The gold medal match will be against Cuba.
Women’s volleyball and men’s handball to play for bronze
The female patriotic sextet will play for the gold medal against the team that wins between Colombia and El Salvador this Friday at 10:00 pm (8:00 pm from El Salvador) They lost 25-19, 26- 16, 22-25 and 25-21 against the Dominican Republic.
For its part, the men’s handball team will play this Friday against the winner of Mexico and the Dominican Republic for the bronze medal.
