The 2009 Bolivarians

For the past 2 weeks our family has had the privilege of enjoying the 2009 Bolivarians Olympic Games. Every 3 years the continent of South America hosts the Olympic games named after famous liberator Simon Boliviar. All the countries that compete are the countries that were at one time liberated by Boliviar. Incredibly, this addition of the games was hosted in our very own Sucre!!! It’s the first time in 40 years the games have been in Bolivia and the first time ever in Sucre. This has been an extremely important event for the country, and a great opportunity to showcase the culture, beauty, and promise that characterizes Bolivia. In fact, some say the only bigger event to happen in Bolivia over the past 50 or more years was when the Pope visited in the 1980’s! With that said hoards of people and thousands of athletes (several that competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics) have invaded Sucre over the past 2 weeks and made our tranquil little city quite active and busy. Since we live near the center of town we have been in close proximity to several of the competitions. In fact, a week ago on our way to church we were detoured by the cycling event, which had shut down main roads in downtown, and finished at the Plaza near our house. Overall Bolivia is not known for its athletes (outside of racquetball believe it or not) so we didn’t have a whole lot to cheer for but it was fun to be apart of the festivities and excitement.

The opening ceremonies were quite interesting, as the total process took somewhere around 5 hours. Though we could see the stadium and fireworks from our front room window we decided to just watch the event on TV and avoid the crowd. Here is a short video clip of the ceremonies.

The Bolivarians included most of the normal events you would think of: basketball, soccer, cycling, volleyball, swimming, track and field, gymnastics, baseball, boxing; and a few others that are popular in this part of the world: indoor soccer, table tennis, and billiards. Outside of soccer one of the most popular sports in Bolivia is Volleyball. Since we live near the indoor arena we decided two separate nights to try to watch indoor volleyball. We also thought it would be something that Ella would enjoy. However, I think everyone else in Sucre also had the same idea. We became 3, of hundreds of people trying to jockey our way into the small arena to watch Bolivia and top seeded Peru square off in Men’s team volleyball. It was quite humorous because people became almost fanatical about trying to get in. Pushing, shoving, and rattling gate doors with displeasure when the police attempted to limit the crowd entering the building. It reminded me of Black Friday stampedes for dancing Elmo’s and Cabbage Patch dolls. So, needless so say we did not make it into volleyball. We did however manage with little resistance to watch the track and field events. As you will notice in the pictures below track and field is not a popular sport in South America. The stadium was basically empty. But we had fun!

The Olympic flame at Estadio Patria

Men's 1500.

You have to admire any athlete that is able to compete at a high level, running at an altitude of 9,000 feet.

Men's Long Jump

Women's 100m prelims

Ella was a little scared of the multi colored hair but she was excited to get a picture with Erika Benilda Chavez Quintero of Ecuador the Women's 400m champion.