Four steps for Peru to walk on to sports excellence.
By Nelson
Peñaherrera. Photos by Estany Tineo.
About three decades ago, Peru’s Olympic Committee
began to have Cuba’s spors specialists for increasing our achievement in
diverse events.
As part of that tradition, René
Baró, 56, master for Havana
University’s Manuel Fajardo National Sports Institute, arrived into our
contry five years ago, being initially assigned to Tacnna, but we have him in
Piura a year ago.
One
of his challenges is discovering and training table tennis new talents in La
Unión (Lower Piura) , where there is already a significant group of boys
and girls preparing on. “The Municipality is giving me all its availability,”
he clears.
Baró is trying to introduce the Cuban model that
became successful in every sports competition or the majority of them, at
least, including Olympics. “If you compare the amount of medals Cuba has got
per inhabitant versus the amount of medals United States has got per
inhabitant, you’ll see Cuba has got many more gathered,” he explains me.
However, a first element of resistance is Peruvian
idiosyncracy that judges everything, that seems to accomplish what the worst enemy of a Peruvian is another
Peruvian, that has a huge skill to cheat. And all this affects the sport
achievement.
Is there a solution to the problem? Mr Baró thinks
yes, and he has a strategy that can work even provided we truly apply it.
1. Building a pyramid
The most extended Sports policy in Peru continues to
be promoting soccer and volley, ignoring there are most sports and disciplines
fit to our biotype (the general
configuration of our bodies), which
highlights our small height. Curiously,this could be our strength if we focus
on successful results.
“Piura
can be a good place to promote the fighting sports like judo, karate or olympic
wrestling,” Baró suggests. “Also gymnastics, athletism, or table tennis.”
Talent detection has be to base on worldwide
standarized tests, those leave out lobbies, social status or buddies network.
“Then, once you detect them, enter them in a County’s
High Achievement Center, where they live intern for receiving academic instruction
and controlled sports training,” he explains. “It got to be one center in every
Peru’s county.”
The best county talents can be promoted to a State’s
High Achievement Center, and who highlight in that level, reaching to a
National High Achievement Center.
“There you have the three levels of the pyramid, and
if you apply them, you’ll see that sports in Peru improve a lot,” Baró assures.
2. The art of
sport is based on its science
The thesis that René Baró wrote in Cuba for graduating
begins explaining the bio-psycho-social
reality of the sport, what means it obbeys to anatomic and physiologic
processes, it much involves the mental state of who practices it, and it is an
integrative element to our community.
How many Physical Education teachers, trainers know
it? “In Piura, there’s much empiricism,” Baró Observes. “It’s necessary to have
seminars with the people, make them to understand that sports obbey to a system
and a methology,” he points out.
“The two strongest problems here are few motor skills
and laterality,” the specialist states, to have the right positions that
reflects when we don’t know for practicing every sport… and we often confuse right and left.
“That’s why it’s important education on physical culture since they’re littles,
not for holding a weight but for get familiar to moves and spaces,” he
comments.
The another aspect to remember is the minimum and
maximum ideal age for start up in any sport or discipline.
3. The best
sportspersons have a high instruction level
For René Baró, good sportsperson is the opposite to
brain weakness. The person must manage all the information related to what
practices for the performance to be good and better.
The specialist reminds that in Cuba, the academic
instruction levels are high –like
studies of international organisms prove- focusing not only on Maths and
Language but all sciences and arts, so the person has a wide culture and a
pretty accurate criteria. If that one practices sports, that reflects
inmediatly as excellent results – high competitivity.
“The two basic elements of every sportsperson are
instruction and communication – knows how to act, knows how to express,” he underlines.
Inclusive, Baró suggests the public TV turns into a tele-school
combining in-room and out-room criteria allowing to every person to obtain
better scores when upgrading.
Thus, if violence continues to be exploited, we’ll still
have a violent country.
He also recommends to prefer Internet as source of
investigation before amusement. If not, we’ll still have a society only
consuming but not evolving.
4. No negative
attitude
The fable tells that Peruvian crabs were put inside a
cube and Japanese crabs in another one. They were requested to look for a leader.
Peruvian crabs fought to lead the rest while the others pull them down, so all
the crowd finished moving in circles inside the cube. In Japanese case, one led
and the rest began to follow it in line.
The lack of discipline, courage and self-steeme are,
from Baro’s perspective, the factors those unallow the Peruvian sport to be a
world potence despite having much talent.
“The Peruvians see a stronger challenger and they
inmediatly have a negative vision of them-selves, when a sportsperson must go
out to fight,” Baro criticizes.
When negative vision is not self-suggested, there will
be ever another compatriot who reminds it. From discouragement to another
discouragement, it’s not able to reach anywhere, like the crabs inside the
cube.
Post-produced
by Sheyla Benavente.
Read also the stories of swimmer
Fran Checa and muay
thai fighter Daniel Garro.
