Guatapé, a race for history.
Is Galeano right when he says that “the world is made of stories”?
Because one could come and say that on Saturday, July 3, one woke up in Guatapé to see people swimming, rolling and running. And that's it. There wouldn't be much more to add. We would talk about records, positions, marks and speeds.
I prefer to play with other numbers to measure what happened around that body of water where many of us met to fulfill an appointment that we had postponed with so much anxiety.
Gone are the virtualities that occupied our time and made us think we were there, the confinements in which we imagined each stroke in the water, the screens through which we pretended to be climbing some first-class mountain pass. Goodbye, hopefully for a long time, and welcome to the wind in our faces, the screams making their way through masks and the blessed emotion of being seconds away from launching into the immensity of the dam to process that accumulated desire to give the surname stamped on our chest to this experience, which more than a race, was a kind of release, a cry that was contained, the page of a book that had been waiting for a long time to be written.
I prefer to think of other times, other values. For example, I wonder how much happens between the kiss at the start and the kiss at the end, or how many hugs the athletes hung up like medals, or how many photos were uploaded to the cloud, or how many hours of video tell the memory of what happened in the streets of Guatapé.
I like to think that each triathlete made his race a love letter. Some fought bare-handed against the inclemency of the waters, mixed their fears with the darkness of that lake and fought the battle against the panic that comes from feeling alone in the immensity of that puddle. Another remembered his mother, while climbing one of the unbearable slopes that were part of the bike course, and remembered how much he loves her, and how early he got up that day to wait for her after the finish line. There would also be the story of someone who looked up to the sky, to remember the one who was there to encourage more than one stride and made his jog a tribute, a homage to the one he watched from the highest stands.
Guatapé was the town of stories. Of parents encouraging their children, or of children encouraging their parents. It must have been the setting for someone to meet an old love, or to meet some unknown eyes that will soon be courting each other. There were little ones taking their first steps and proud eyes following the efforts of those who risked their lives on that dish that is eaten in three courses. It was the city of hugs, of heated spirits, of agitated waters, of devilish cranks, of heated shoes, of agitated hearts. Also, almost as if it were the least relevant, it was the location of a triathlon race in which there were people occupying places on the podium and keeping times on watches. Sport, with pure fire, is very similar to the most beautiful thing in life, it became the excuse to find the most exaggerated and beautiful ways of crossing paths of love.
I think so, Galeano is right. The world, at least ours which was Guatapé, is made of stories.