The rising career of Para swimmer Vicente Almonacid Heyl continues to mark new and outstanding milestones. His 2022 was crowned by the “Best of the Best” award, in the Paralympic category, succeeding his partner Alberto Abarza in the list of this award winners.
“With Alberto we have been team mates for a while, we went together to Tokyo, he’s a great person and obviously he’s an inspiration to me, since he already won this award last year, and today it is me,” he acknowledged. About the award given by the Chilean Sports Journalists Circle, he said: “In the end, it is an acknowledgement to your sports career and it is a huge motivation for next year.”
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The TV graphics for the Portugal Para Swimming World Championship: Vicente Almonacid first on the list and world champion (photo: World Para Swimming)
This year will mark a milestone in his career due to the title obtained in the SB8 100m breaststroke event in the Para Swimming World Championship, held in the city of Madeira, in Portugal. On that occasion, his mark was 1:11.57, beating the Spanish Óscar Salgeiro by mere hundredths of a second.
It is the same event that allowed him to get his first Gold medal in the Lima 2019 Parapan American Games, which was the Games with the best chilean performance, with 10 Gold medals, five of which were obtained in the pool. And he wants to repeat it for Santiago 2023.
“I am a highly competitive person, I want to continue growing as an athlete. In the last Games I got one Gold, one Silver and one Bronze, and now I would like to defend those medals, and hopefully change the silver and bronze for two golds,” he stated, remembering his second place in SM8 200m Medley and his third place in S8 50m freestyle, obtained in Perú.
Apart from the Games in Chile, next year will bring another relevant challenge for Almonacid. Between July 31st and August 6th the World Championship will be held in Manchester, United Kingdom, where he hopes to repeat the results of Portugal and reach the greatest event in the Americas fully prepared.
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