A gold medal for peace

Lima (August 12)  – Tears of joy, hugs, handshakes, and kisses join the sweat that floods the body and the mind of a winner, even before the awareness that a champion has been born, who will be honoured with gratitude for so much effort.

Multi-sport games like these Pan-Americans, attended by all 41 countries in the region, supporting their reason for being when they repeat “We all play,” will go down in history for having brought together so many good people from across Our America.

We have lived intense days, wanting to see everything, knowing that it would be impossible to cover the hundreds of events on the schedule, that took us away from home and family for more than two weeks. Any nostalgia was compensated by the great opportunity to see the continent’s youth share the healthiest desire to honour our Greater Homeland.

Every time I come to cover one of these celebrations of sports in the Americas, I ask myself the same question: How is it possible that outside the noble competitive environment, people have not learned to live in peace with their fellows?

I return to Peru for the second time, and the helping hands in the stands, in the streets, in the event itself, lead me to reflect on whether the endangered human species, as Fidel predicted years ago, will be so thoughtless as not to notice that a better world is possible. Let us begin by imitating what we have seen in these images of fellowship, starting in these Pan Americans and expanding around the world

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