Macarena Ceballos gave Argentine swimming the first good news in Paris 2024. The 29-year-old from Córdoba reached the semifinals of the 100-meter breaststroke of the Olympic Games from the French capital, the first of his career. At the Paris La Defense Arena, she finished sixth in her heat with a time of 1m06s89 and was the last to enter the next instance, which she will play at 9:10 p.m. (16:10 in Argentina).
“I dreamed it, I thought it was possible. I didn’t make the time, but I’m in the semifinals. I’m a little nervous. I dreamed it, I thought it was possible,” said the woman born in Río Cuarto happily and very excited.
The emotion has a simple explanation: Maca came to Paris with the aim of doing a good job, but also to definitively get rid of the frustration she had with the Olympic events. Eight years ago she had been excited about competing in Rio 2016. She had achieved the B mark for those Games (18 hundredths below A), a record that placed her on a list of swimmers in a position to be “invited” to compete. The invitation never came.
She then aimed her all at Tokyo 2020, but between the postponement due to the pandemic and an injury to her right shoulder that she had been carrying for years and that forced her to undergo surgery in August 2021, she was also unable to swim in the Japanese capital.
After the 2019 Lima Pan American Games, he thought about stopping swimming, because he had “had a very bad time” at that event, as he told last year to Clarion. “It wasn’t healthy for me.” But he drew strength and desire from wherever he could and did not give up, dreaming of removing the thorn in the Olympic Games before retirement.
“I came to think that they weren’t for me. That there was no chance. But then I thought, I give everything, I leave everything, if it works well and if not it shouldn’t be like that,” he said in that same talk.
But the Olympic ticket came, perhaps as a reward for his resilience. At the 2023 Fukuoka World Cup, he achieved the A mark in his event, with an Argentine and South American record of 1m06s69. And this Sunday, he not only had the pleasure of making his debut in the most important event in the sport, but he also entered the semis. And at night, he will go for more.