Merida’s Salvador Alvarado Stadium celebrated its 82nd anniversary today, with a virtual race, physical activation, and the participation of local sports personalities.
The traditional tours of the tartan track, one for each year that the venue has, as well as the exhibitions and lightning tournaments will be left for another occasion. However, athletes, coaches and staff met on digital platforms to give their testimony of the so-called cathedral of Yucatecan sports.
The stadium has hosted soccer and baseball tournaments, as well as track & field, swimming, synchronized swimming, amateur boxing, tennis, racquetball, softball, children’s baseball, and paddle tennis, among many other disciplines, in addition to the hundreds of people who, even before the pandemic, used to enjoy exercising there in the mornings and afternoons.
Likewise, three editions of the National Olympiad (1999, 2001, and 2005) were held there. Olympic medalist Ana Gabriela Guevara practiced at the building for the 2004 Athens Games and future stars such as Román Riquelme and Pablo Aimar trained with the Argentine U-20 soccer team during their stay in Mérida to play the Joao Havelange Cup back in 1997.
A special program that was broadcast through the Yucatán Sport Institute (IDEY) social networks, featured several Yucatecan sport personalities such as the former world boxing champion, Gustavo Espadas Cruz; the former sprinter Moroni Rubio Navarro, multi-medalist in the National Olympiad; karate fighter Guadalupe Quintal Catzín; Rodrigo Águila Lara, athlete in the athletics modality for the blind and visually impaired; the former champ Karem Achach Ramírez; the boxing coach, Henry Vidal Gijón; former national boxing champion José Medina Cetina; athletics coach Enrique Cerón Espinoza, from Tekax, and track & field athlete Leonel Macías Sánchez.
