• Submitted by: admin
• Caribbean
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• Sports
• 12 / 30 / 2008

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The program wants to train high performance athletes at middle and long terms and increase the competition capacity of Guatemalan athletes in and out of the Central American country.

Five training centers have appeared, one in the capital, and four in the departments of Izabal (north), Quetzaltenango (west), Suchitepéquez (south) and Zacapa (east).

Children and adolescents receive accommodation, food, education, sports training, implements and medical attention for free, as much as specialized psychological attention.

SIDEPORTE counts on the technical, scientific and methodological advisory of Cuban professionals in several sports such as track and field, boxing, canoeing, shooting, volleyball, fencing, judo and weightlifting.

The plan was inaugurated in January 2008 with the presence of Cuban sport stars Alberto Juantorena and Ana Fidelia Quirot. The first results came during the celebration of the 12th Central American School Games in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and in El Salvador.

Thirty athletes from the SIDEPORTE program won 9 gold, 13 silver and 18 bronze medals in these competitions. And during the 30th National Sports Games in Jalapa, they won 91 medals from a total of 444.

Freddy Godoy, press attaché of the Guatemalan Sports Autonomous Confederation, said that this is a unique program in Central America, which fruits should grow more in 2009.

(PL)