Irving Saladino’s Golden Jump

Here’s another one I should have blogged about last week but didn’t because of a tight schedule: Panama’s Irving Saladino who lived up to the hype by outjumping the competition in the men’s long jump. Congratulations, Irving.

Update: Here’s a video of Irving’s golden jump.

And here’s a picture, courtesy of estrelladepanama, of the Olympic hero’s homecoming.

Interestingly, the Panama Guide reports that Irving was “re-awarded” his medal during his homecoming. Why go through the process of awarding the medal to him again? Panama Guide has the juicy details:

As part of the festivities yesterday, Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran “re-presented” the Olympic Gold medal to Irving Saladino in front of thousands of cheering fans at the steps to the ACP administration building in Balboa yesterday morning.

Saladino considered the medal to be “tainted” because it was awarded to him by Melitón Sánchez, the only member of the Panamanian Olympic Committee who was not under a court ordered restriction to keep him from traveling to Beijing.

Check out this video on delante.com that shows how Telemetro had blocked out the face of Melitón Sánchez to the delight of Irving Saladino’s father, who went on to say that after Melitón Sánchez awarded the medal and shook Saladino’s hands, that he wiped them on his ass to clean them.

So, the “re-do” medal award ceremony with Roberto Duran presenting the medal again was specifically to purge the memory of Melitón Sánchez. In an interview Irving Saladino said about Sánchez “that guy has no shame.”

The controversy over the fight to gain control of the Panamanian Olympic Committee continues, and hopefully with the attention drawn to the issue with Irving Saladino’s win in Beijing, the Panamanian justice system will smack a homerun and set things straight (finally.) This whole thing has been one big embarrassment and Irving said it right, they have no shame at all.

So it seems like there is a power struggle on who should control Panama’s Olympic Committee. Sounds familiar, no?

Related: Country Report: Panama’s Beijing Bound Athletes

Photo credit: BBC and estrelladepanama