Panamanian athletes Ian Romero and Natalia Pérez won bronze medals at the Junior and Cadet Pan American Championships and the U-22 Pan Am Series, which took place in the city of Querétaro, Mexico last weekend.
In these two high-level and important events for the discipline of taekwondo throughout the American continent, Panama competed with an outstanding delegation of 12 athletes, who traveled since July 18 to acclimatize and participate in preparatory camps, thus obtaining two bronze medals.
In the U-22 Pan Am Series, which is the first of 5 mandatory events to qualify for the Asunción 2025 Pan American Games, the 68 kg athlete, Romero, after 4 fights, obtained the bronze medal, in a category where there were more than 30 competitors, thus achieving the first points for this classification.
For her part, Natalia Pérez, currently number 5 in the Pan American ranking in the 42 kg youth category, won the bronze medal after being seeded in the second round by ranking. She subsequently beat the representative of Puerto Rico and lost to the Brazilian team, which became the champion of that category.
The Panamanian Federation, through its president Boris Álvarez, highlighted the effort made by all the young people of our discipline every day to be able to represent our country with dignity, at the same time thanked the sports authorities such as Pandeportes for having covered the expenses of the delegation and as well as the Olympic Committee of Panama for its unconditional support.
We can also highlight the performance in the Poomsae (Forms) category of Dana Varella, Cadet category, Joseph Rodríguez, Under-22 and Poll Allegria in Youth, the latter reaching the final round of his category. In Kyorugui (Combat), we have Sebastián Lasso, Javier Decerega, Yerkins Wharton, Brenda Brooks, Iván Ríos, Edgardo Pastor and Fernando Lewis.
