Julián Andrés Santa
It is not every day that a young 15-year-old athlete makes her debut in the National Games and immediately wins a silver medal, facing the best in the country and with great achievements. This is what happened with the Pereira swimmer Emily Juliana Tapiero Herrera who served as one of the revelation athletes of Risaralda in the past sports fairs of the Coffee Region and in 2024 she projects herself big with her challenges at the national and international level, focusing 100% in their daily preparation and improvement.
Juliana tells how she came to this sport: “I started skating when I was five years old and when I was 10 years old I had an accident that limited me to not being able to do any type of sport for more or less two years. After that I learned about swimming through some private classes they were doing at the school where I was studying and one day they brought me here to the pools of the Olympic Village and that was where I discovered the wonderful sport that I practice.”
From Calypso he went to the league
“At the age of 12 I practiced at the Calypso Club and lasted more or less two years, until one day the league coach, without even having to do a check-up or any mark to be part of the selection, called me and told me He told me to go and that he wanted to see me train and from that day on he saw me and talked to me a lot about my future and basically it became something very important in my life and I truly discovered what I liked and I dedicated myself 100% to the sport. ”.
His first competitions and triumphs
“In Manizales after the pandemic it was my first championship. It was the first time that I competed in a medal event because in skating I didn’t do it as something high performance, but rather as a hobby. My first triumphs were four silver medals, two gold and one bronze.”
National Games at 15 years old
“I didn’t see myself in the National Games because when I got to the league, in the long-distance event there were already the two girls who occupied that position and then they retired and I went from being in the background to the foreground and they began to capture me. those game goals. My preparation began and lasted more or less a year. With my coach we visualized it and in the final it was fulfilled.”
“If I’m honest, it was a very unexpected medal because in past championships that was precisely the test in which I did the worst, so to speak, it was the test that I never put any effort into, I didn’t put faith in it and it was just in the proof that victory came to me.”
With all the concentration on the test
“About the competition in which Juliana Tapiero won the silver medal, she says: “I just felt so concentrated unlike other events because many times I arrived and stood on the cue and I didn’t know how I was going to swim or things like that but The day I was standing on the playground, I came out determined and thinking about everything I had trained, all my efforts, and I was very focused on what I was doing. With the last 100, 200 meters to go, I felt like I couldn’t give it any more, I was dizzy, I saw everything black and when I arrived and they told me that I had come second, it was like I forgot all those pains.
“I can say that I arrived much more motivated than normal, I feel like I want to train more and more to see what I can continue to achieve from now on. Now I have many goals, many projects and I hope to be able to achieve them all from now on.”
He has the World Cup in his sights
“On May 5 there is a qualifier in Santa Marta for the Open Water World Cup that will be in Marseille, France in the month of September, being able to be there is one of my great goals and then the Interleagues, those are like the two most important championships and my main goal is to qualify for the World Cup where I must come first in the open youth division and if possible beat the majors.”