Tunari Elite Skating Club was born in 2016 as part of an impulse to create and spread the atmosphere for the sports discipline of racing, more so with the arrival of the South American Games Cochabamba 2018.
Besides the fact that Bolivia managed to field a team in the event, taking advantage of the fact that the city had a state-of-the-art skating rink, left a promising future in the sport. Today, the club boasts significant brands and anointed both local, national and a well-deserved continental runner-up.
“At first, it was not easy to start. Many people do not take it as a game, but as a simple game or pastime. But if we analyze the game, it is quite complex, but a The times you see the sacrifices and the results show that it is a high performance sport”, said Denis Mendizabal, coach and one of the pioneers of this discipline.
The club started in 2016 with only seven athletes, but gradually they gained followers and to date they have over 25 boys, girls and youth in continuous training and competition.
Since its inception, Club Tunari Elite has been dedicated to training at Excombatientes Park, where the younger divisions still form from the age of 3. With the most advanced classes, he trains at the Coña Coña Skating Track.
“In the beginning, it was a process of less is more, where I found talented kids, but had to have a different plan because skating is very new in Bolivia. The idea is to create a good process and in the future to involve the kids in world competitions and get a title”, assured the club’s coach Jhon Jairo Salgado, who arrived six months ago from his native Colombia.
Every afternoon, enthusiastic parents take their children to training, where, in addition to meeting more people, athletes build character, adapt to the terms of the discipline and, above all, master their skates and avoid falling. lose the fear of
This also includes financial support that comes from the parents’ pocket, because the sport is not cheap, but every effort is worth it.
Perseverance paid off in a short time: in two years, the Tunari Elite Club won several medals at the Rosario 2022 and Asuncion 2023 South American Games, the latter in which participants reached team runners-up: 36 medals with 18 gold, nine silver and nine A bronze.
