Argentine José Torres Gil won a gold medal at BMX Freestyle on Wednesday at Place de la Concorde, the opening medal for Argentina at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
With an impressive first run scoring 94.82 points, the 29-year-old rider born in Bolivia, who had qualified for the final with the seventh best average, surprised everyone by beating Brit Kieran Reilly, silver medallist, and Frenchman Anthony Jeanjean, bronze.
With his white t-shirt, black trousers, camouflaged into his bicycle’s black frame, José Torres, a.k.a. “'Maligno”, also performed a good second run at 92.12, though in the final only the best of the two runs was good enough to qualify.
Torres had already got the gold at the Pan-American games last year in Santiago and also got a title a the 2023 X Games, two years after making history by becoming the first Argentine athlete to receive a medal (bronze) at the so-called “Xtreme Games”.
Brazilian Gustavo Batista was sixth, while current Olympic champion, Australian Logan Martin, scored 9th and qualified last for the final.
What does it feel like to have a gold medal hanging as an Olympic champion?
J: What’s happening is crazy, I can’t even take it in or believe it. I need to go back to the village, sit in silence for a while and look at the medal to understand what’s going on, I didn’t expect this, I feel that today achieving a medal for Argentina, right now, when we have so many very good athletes who have been working incredibly hard but we had no medals yet, today we’re representing all of them and anyone who deserves a medal.
AFP: When you woke up this morning, did it go through your mind that you’d go to bed an Olympic champion?
J: I’m going to be very clear, I still haven’t said this in any interview. I woke up and my coach was asleep, then I stood up to get something, I looked at the clothes horse, and there was the same uniform I won in. And I looked at it and I don’t know why I felt it would be different. I already got signs every day, but when I looked at the uniform, I said to myself “what happened, why am I looking at this?” and I felt it right there.
AFP: What was your routine, what was the strategy?
J: We managed to do a routine looking a bit to jump from one ramp to the other, what is called transfers, which wasn’t really being done by many here. Because I was one of the only ones, it helped me add a lot, I tried to seek perfection, clean tricks, which helped me remain consistent. In the end I ended with quite a big trick and the judges valued that and gave me the top score.
AFP: How will you face the rest of your career now?
J: I don’t know, it’s my first time. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I get to Argentina, I will be the same person, I’m not superior to anyone, I’ll go to the Park and keep training because I can’t lose my momentum. I’d like to do a ride with everyone in Córdoba, because the medal is theirs.
--TIMES/AFP
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