chulucanasgym: Freddy Pozo’s 7 big challenges

This athlete reveals what made him to hold on a sport career despite the obstacles.

All photographs provided by Freddy Pozo.

Freddy Daniel Pozo Guerrero was born in Piura City, Peru, on October 7^th, 1982. When he still studied at San Miguel School, in this city, he premiered as an athlete in 1994 School Games. He was recruited because of his talent into the so-called Achievement Poles promoted by Cuban trainers.

In 1997, he classified to a Peruvian Northern tournament. He got a place that same year for a nationwide’s else.

Since 1999, he began to train with Jose Bonilla Cortez. The next year, he won marathons in Piura City, Trujillo (both in Peru), and Macará (Ecuador). His achievement as a top athlete allowed him to enter directly the university in Trujillo, in 2001, where he highlighted in the 5K, 10K pedestrian tests, while he got high scores in lane – 800 meters, 1500 meters tests.

When his sport career was rising, the first difficulty came in. An injury forced him to break it all. He lost the scholarship.

He had to return to Piura where he entered another university. His body seemed to react again as much as he was an athletics university champion between 2005 and 2007. One of his major achievements was winning in Cuenca (Ecuador) amid his category. He covered 44.4 miles in 6 hours.

Despite he was the Best Piurano in Piura’s Half Marathon, he decided to leave the sport and focus in his studies in 2008. Then, he faced his second big difficulty. He looked for sponsors but no one granted him. “Sports are not profitable because you have to train 6 daily hours,” he tells. Aside the time, he might invest in feeding and supplements. There was no money.

This decision carried him a third difficulty. Freddy is 5.5 feet. In 2008, he was 123 lbs. Breaking suddenly made him to increase 88 lbs, slightly .

A fourth difficulty returned him to athletics but not in a competitive level. His mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2016. In the beginning, she survived it, and the physical activity was part of the treatment. Freddy turned her coach.

He lived a fifth difficulty with his mother. An apparent medical negligence caused her to pass away in 2019.

Freddy sheltered in the sport. He went out running in the mornings, he went to the gym at nights, beginning himself in Olympic discipline – powerlifting, very different to bodybuilding, because the first one addresses to hold on a weight in the air the most time in the less number of moves as possible, the second one basically addresses to model the muscles.

“Many people remembered me from my time as an athlete,” Freddy comments.

It was when the sixth difficulty came in. Somebody used a pesticide to poison one of his colleagues. Somehow, Freddy got poisoned. His central nervous system was under attack causing him a temporary paralysis that has turned a fibromyalgia –defined by Mayo Clinic as generalized muscular pain and sensitiveness—through the years.

In freddy’s case, it turned him off some flexibility. As the physical therapies were very expensive, he had to learn applying them. Even, he opened a specialized center but he might close it because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here we have the seventh difficulty.

During the lockdown, he studied handball and volleyball which he graduated as a technician. The interesting is he never has done any of them in his lifetime. “I’m a little self-taught,” he affirms. “What I have learned was by my own.”

Up to this date, Freddy Pozo coaches handball teams in sub-13 and sub-17 categories, he’s 135 lbs, he believes the sport helped him to overcome every difficulty. It rejuvenated him,even: “The training and the lifestyle make me looking like a 27-year-old dude,” he assures.