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Saladino — bearing the hopes of a nation

Avinash Nair

Irving Saladino is the flag-bearer of the three-member Panamanian contingent to the Beijing Games ... but more importantly it is winning a medal for his country that will be weighing on this 25-year-old long jumper’s mind.

Panama’s only medal success came way back in the London Games in 1948 when Lloyd LaBeach won two bronze medals — in the men’s 100m and 200m.

Since then though Panama has competed in every Olympic Games other than 1956 and 1980 the closest the nation came to winning a medal was in the 400m hurdles when Bayano Kamani finished fifth at the 2004 Athens Games, with an effort of 48.74 seconds.

At Athens Saladino had a disappointing 7.42m to show but since then has come a long way having touched 8.73m at the IAAF World Athletics tour meeting in Hengela (Netherlands).

Saladino, born on January 23, 1983 had a wonderful streak of success in 2006 winning five of the six IAAF Golden League events — Oslo (8.53m), Rome (8.45m), Zurich (8.36m), Brussels (8.31m) and Berlin (8.35m) for a share of the jackpot earnings worth $83,333 that season.

His only failure was in the second of the six events — at Paris St. Denis where he finished second best to Ghanaian Ignisious Gaisah, who leapt 8.31m to his 8.29m.

Dramatic win

Saladino had a dramatic victory at the Osaka World championships last year. After the second round of jumps Saladino had a best of 8.46m and was upstaged by Andrew Howe with an 8.47m going into the last jump. Saladino was not finished yet and produced a best of 8.57m for the gold.

But the genial 25-year-old, who even boasted of besting Mike Powell’s world mark of 8.95m, has been hampered by a knee injury which saw him finish a poor seventh at Berlin this May at the first of the Golden League series. Passionate about baseball, Saladino declined an offer to turn pro, chose athletics and was converted into a long jumper by his first coach Florencio Aguilar. Saladino now trains with coach Nelio Moura at the Sao Paulo Regional Training Centre under the Olympic Solidarity Programme.

With reigning champion Dwight Phillips eliminated in the U.S. trials, Saladino will have to contend with the likes of American duo of Trevell Quinley and Brian Johnson besides Saudi Arabia’s Hussein Taher Al-Sabee and Gaisah, to name a few.

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