Sebastián Olivares: the Colombian record that rose calmly and discipline
Photo: Juan Felipe Delgado-Secretariat of Sports and Recreation of Cali
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It was as if everything conspired at that time: high lights, expectant public, Norway's pulse vibrating in the Førde enclosure.
Sebastián Olivareswrapped in the official blue fortune of the Colombian National Team, tight to the body, its tense straps as a list, made its entrance to the platform with a firm step and pointing to the sky with the eyes closed.
He wore the national colors embroidered in the chest; He didn't wear a belt. His hands, impregnated with magnesium; White, upholstered wristbands, and carefully rolled tapes.
His eyes, fixed on the bar, were a mixture of concentration, respect and thirst for victory. A cry of strength to touch the bar. The public was reduced to an eternal murmur in his mind and one last indication of his coach, Luis Arrieta: “Open the chest.” The monitor showed: Snatch, category 71 kg, first attempt: 149 kg. The brand expects; The rivals observe.
He breathed deep. He put his hands on the bar, firm knees, the body in balance between calm and explosion. Straight back, fixed look. In a precise movement, the bar began to ascend, as if it belonged instantly. But it was in that end, when the thrust had to break the gravity, that the drama found it: The left elbow yielded.
A silent click; an imperceptible crunch to others's ear; An open pain in the second that everyone had. Sebastian felt how the elbow bent with a shudder that toured the entire body. It was an eternal second in which pain mixed with disbelief. The bar went back.
He collapsed, but did not lose consciousness: “I didn't pass out,” he wrote later on his social networks. His dilated pupils, ”I imagine it – they cried pain and surprise. The face, narrowed, as if they pinch each muscle. Breathing, choppy.
From below, someone shouted: “¡For course!”while the coaches rose. The spotlights blinded for a second and their hands were trembling on their knees. The legs yielded. He was seen bringing the other hand to the elbow, as looking for support: An instinctive defense gesture.
Then, the medal, the podium and the applause felt far, far away. He did not fade; that his inner voice requested calm; He felt the sadness in his stomach rather than in his arm. “I feel good, still processing this whole situation”he confessed later. “I trust God and I know this is not an end,” he said.
That nuance of hope crossed his words as the dim reflection of dawn after the storm.
On July 15, 2025, in that coliseum Miguel Calero de Cali, full to the echo, Sebastián wrote a worthy page of legend. In starting he recorded solid results: 141 kg in his first attempt, then 146 kg, and although one of 149 kg failed, his marks already spoke. In envy it began with 175 kg valid; Then he took the jump: 191 kg.
That last uprising not only broke the Pan -American record, but inscribed in history as World record of 71 kg. With a total of 337 kg, he dominated the absolute category. With just 20 years, Sebastián became an absolute champion of the Pan American: a young man who crossed the sports court with an old Titan force.
The Colombian press celebrated the feat; The fans claimed him as a hero, and social networks multiplied his name in every corner.
Born in Cartagena and strengthened in the Tolima League, where a little more than a year and a half ago arrived, Olivares has traveled the classic path: days of gym; bones that have consulted the pain; trips with contained backpack; training in the early morning; technicians who wrinkle eyebrows; family and friends who push hope.
He has been a world medalist worldwide, he has added medals for Colombia in regional tournaments, he has felt the weight of comparisons and has loaded on his shoulders the idea that a Colombian can move the world, kilo a kilo.
The Colombian delegation landed in Norway without a doctor of delegation, without assigned methodologist and with tight resources. That lack was no accident, but a reflection of a tiny budget and decisions that prioritized the basics: only athletes, the coaching staff and a physiotherapist traveled.
It is said that the cost of bringing specialists – or keeping them in the delegation – was considered too high in general logistics. This failure of medical and methodological accompaniment in the field, which in competencies of this level can make the difference between a manageable lesion and a definitive withdrawal, Today weighs more than any weighs without lifting.
Imagine: Sebastián, at that moment of suffering, without a doctor on duty with him, without a contingency plan designed in the heat of the competition. This structural vulnerability subtracted maneuver margin just when the body demands immediate responses.
The injuries are treacherous and silent. In the world of weightlifting, the elbow is an ungrateful hero: it must resist forces that double body weight, tensions that are born from the impulse and end in blocking. When that limit crosses, the result can be abrupt.
In the case of Sebastian, the coup was not just physical: it was symbolic. The dream folded just when the bar took him to the top. But, as every great athlete knows, defeats do not dictate destiny: the one who understands the pain transforms it into a vigor scenario. Sebastian knows it. That promise is the one that he will wear as a new uniform. And we follow him, we will also wear it with him.
Sebastián is not reduced to raising kilos: it is the incarnation of a generation that aspires that sport is not a leak, but legacy. That his fall today is not a final defeat, but a turning point in a journey that will surely continue to gain arguments.
If Colombian lostfilia wants to continue demonstrating its power to the world, it needs to structure support in every way: medical, methodological, sports, integral. That is the musculature that is not seen, but that can sustain Torres. That which is threatened by the sport budget.
Discuss me for being so repetitive, but it is truly worrying. That's why it hurt more to see him get out of competition: because if something had this World Cup for Colombia it was an announced headline – “Sebastián Olivares is gold” -.
He had won it on stage, kilo to kilo, from the leagues of Tolima to the national team. He was the boy who came from touching the roof and who arrived in Norway with that strange serenity of the one who knows that his body is ready for another big page.
However, if Colombia has demonstrated in this sport, it is its ability to become stronger. With a support structure of the height – methodological and planning -, Sebastian's next chapter should be written on the same land that brought it here: technique, discipline and that cold head that makes the great, really great.
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