Memorable Moment by Julio David Palacios Tello
Ercila Beatriz Limas Rosales is a promising young Peruvian weightlifter. At her 16 years she has been ranked among the top eleven youth lifters of the world in the 58 kg category at the last Youth World Championships held in May 2011 in our country, Peru. Her story is an example of tenacity and commitment for our athletes, who want to bring out the best of them. Beatrice has shown them that making efforts and overcoming obstacles are constant improvements day by day.
Beatriz was born on December 5, in 1996 in a village “shipihua”, a wild tribe located downstream in Padre Abad in the Ucayali region Aguaytia, which can be reached only by the river in small boats as the dinghy. Village life unfolds in a very traditional way where the houses are raised with straw and leaves “pona”, which is a type of wood used to cover the floor of their homes, while women are preparing food cooking on wood or fire.
Beatriz became involved in weightlifting for pure curiosity. When she lived in Santa Rosa community, she was watching the training of the Aguaytía League and, once when there was nobody around she started to imitate the movements she had seen during the others were training.
Recognizing her interest in this discipline, Coach Pedro Pascual Zuta Paredes urged her to begin the proper weightlifting training, to which she agreed quickly and started learning the techniques of the snatch and clean and jerk. Her skills were improving, her technique was getting better during the trainings; it did not take much effort to her to adapt to the daily life of the same.
The time arrived soon to show her quality as an athlete and make her debut in a tournament held in Chachapoyas where she managed to be within the best three of her division being the youngest among the juniors. Therefore she could participate in the National Championship for Minors organized in the city of Arequipa in December 2010 where Beatrice became the national champion setting a new national record in her age group (under 13 years) in the 40 kg category.
Until today, Limas became national champion three times and also was considered the best athlete of 2010 among the athletes under 15 years old of the city of Arequipa.
Since 2011, Beatriz has been training in Cuba in order to improve her training methods thanks to a scholarship granted by the ADO (Association of Olympic Athletes in Peru) where at the same time she is s pursuing her studies and the target is not other but the next Olympic cycle on the way to the Rio Olympic Games 2016.
All these achievements at such a young age made Beatriz very admired and respected in her village, managing to overcome obstacles as an athlete at national and international levels and trying to improve herself always with the aim to become better and better.
On the other hand, we shall emphasize that prior to getting involved with weightlifting, Beatriz never went to school, did not speak Spanish, only the dialect of her tribe (Shipibo language). She did not know neither how to write until start practicing our discipline. Then she started to learn the Castilian (standard Spanish) language little by little and writing with remarkable facility and cleverness.
In 2011 she participated in the VIII and IX Pan American and South American Championship for athletes under 15 years in Isla Margarita – Venezuela, occupying a creditable 4th place among the Pan American and occupying third place in the South American lifters achieving three bronze medals for Peru and making three new national records in her category.
Limas is also involved in a program of the PAD (Athletes’ Support Program) promoted by the Peruvian Sports Institute (IPD), in addition she gained a scholarship in Havana, Cuba, Peru thanks to the ADO Board, an association whose purpose is to support the high performance athletes of Peru with the help of the Peruvian Olympic Committee, the Peruvian State through the Ministry of Education and the private sector, a task performed for the first time in Peru.
Julio David Palacios Tello
Technical Coordinator FDPLP
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