The ceremony where the most prominent athletes of the season are recognized, by the Círculo de Periodistas Deportivos de Chile, has the name “the best of the best” and between their traditions one of the relevant chroniclers of the trade receives an award. This last recognition this year was received by Juan Esteban Lastra (67), the multisport journalist with 42 years of experience.
About the award provided by his own peers, the professional that right now is providing services to professional pilots of the motorized world -between other labors-, recognized that it took him by surprise. “In the list of the winners there are very well known people that made a bigger impact, I am more of one of the dedicated journalists and not from football, but multisports,” he said.
Ex athlete from the Club Atlético de Santiago -”I got to be positioned between the five best runners from Chile in the 100 and 200 meters,” he remembered - He got into Universidad de Chile to study sociology and internally he changed to a career that would change his life. “I am a coincidence journalist. I was going to get into physical education and it was also the athlete, Raúl Merino, who suggested journalism and hired me at Club Deportivo de la U,” he said about his beginnings.
Already in mass media, Lastra covered three Pan American Games for the newspaper “La Nación” and its magazine “Trunfo”: Mar de Plata 1995, Guadalajara 2011 and Toronto 2015, plus the Atlanta 1996 Olympics. “Each of these Games means to have a master in this profession, yo alway got to know something or someone, learned a lot of things and that international interaction is very useful, for example, getting to know the internet in 1996, because the bigger events were already using it,” he added.
Juan Esteban Lastra, winner of the 2022 Sports Journalism National Award (picture: Sergio Maureira/Santiago 2023)
SANTIAGO 2023 AND THE IMPACT IN THE YOUTH
The Santiago 2023 Pan American and Parapan American Games will be the most important multisport event in the history of Chile not only while they are happening, but also after. “A lot of people are going to watch them, children and students will want to go to the stadiums, and from here to maybe ten years after we might be able to have the best athletes. That happened at Barcelona ‘92, Spain was always behind and after two Olympic cycles, they started to be the first ones in Europe. It is relevant how it impacted the youth and hopefully a lot will get excited,” he reflected.
And added a fact from his biography: “I became an athlete because I watched on a black and white television the Cali 1971 Pan Americans, the games allow for a lot of young people to fall in love with sports they don’t know”.
The new Journalism National Award ended with the role that the national communicators will have in the coverage. “It will be fundamental, If we practically don’t have newspapers now a days and I don’t If we will get there with the very few we have left, We have social media, the youth uses many applications and I believe that with this we can make this generation like it, we all have to change our mindsets,” he concluded.
WINNERS OF THE SPORTS JOURNALISM NATIONAL AWARD
1969: Renato González
1970: Julio Martínez
1971: Antonino Vera
1972: Gustavo Aguirre
1973: Homero Ávila
1974: Víctor Alonso
1975: Carlos Barahona
1976: Carlos Guerrero
1977: Hernán Cortez
1978: Olegario Gómez
1980: Orlando Ruiz
1982: Juan Grandi
1983: Pedro Pavlovic
1984: Nicanor Molinare
1985: Octavio Sufán
1986: Raúl Hernán Leppé
1987: Sergio Livingstone
1988: Sergio Brotfeld
1989: Máximo Clavería
1990: Jorge Fernández
1991: Pedro Carcuro
1992: Manuel Sepúlveda
1993: Edgardo Marín
1994: Vladimiro Mimica
1995: Hernán Rojas
1996: Julio Salviat
1997: Abraham Dueñas
1998: Igor Ochoa
1999: María Elena Guzmán
2000: Eduardo Bruna
2001: Aldo Schiappacasse
2002: Marco Antonio Cumsille
2003: Sergio Jerez
2004: Michael Müller
2005: Sergio Gilbert
2006: Felipe Bianchi
2007: Alfredo Villalobos
2008: Luis Urrutia O'Nell
2009: Danilo Núñez
2010: Héctor Alarcón
2011: Juan Cristóbal Guarello
2012: César Olmos
2013: Rodrigo Hernández
2014: Felipe Vial
2015: Hugo Marcone
2016: Humberto Ahumada
2017: Juan Carlos Villalta
2018: Eduardo Sepúlveda
2019: Pablo Aravena
2021: Leonardo Burgueño
2022: Juan Esteban Lastra
SANTIAGO 2023 COMMUNICATIONS
E-mail: comunicaciones@santiago2023.org
Official instagram: @santiago2023oficial
Mascot’s instagram: @fiusantiago2023
Twitter: @santiago2023
Facebook: Santiago2023oficial
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TikTok: @Santiago2023oficial
