After the historic medal at the CONADE Nationals in this discipline, the representative team of the Angelópolis will continue its preparation to keep projecting the national sport.
After seven years of not linking charrería with state support, Puebla returned in 2024 to the CONADE National Games, dressing in bronze and marking the history of this discipline through the effort of the Youth category in the Block I Tasks.
The practice of charrería is divided into 10 skills, called so because the success of the execution largely depends on the animal, which during the CONADE Nationals are divided into blocks where teams seek to add as many points as possible and qualify for the next round.
The group led by teacher María Isabel Mezquita Balbuena, delegate of the charrería and skirmish discipline, surprised by achieving 136 points and sneaking onto the podium of the national sport after executing the horse reining skill, lassoing on foot, and tailing.
According to the delegate in an exclusive interview with El Sol de Puebla, Mezquita Balbuena said she was happy with the results, “it is an indescribable pride that you never dimension until you live it, when you transcend in them, that’s when all the work is worth it.”
Even the Children’s B team managed to position itself in the national ranking as one of the nine best teams in the country even though they did not manage to sneak in for the medals; Isabel Mezquita also confessed that this category was the strong card of the state, so the youth not only surprised the other teams but also the Puebla delegation itself.
“This male selection that has participated in favor of charrería will physically see a bronze medal as a symbol of sleepless nights, sadness, joy, anger, and arduous training; in the end, both categories represented the state very well at any moment of the process,” she sentenced.
Charrería entered as an exhibition sport in 2015 in what were previously known as National Olympics, during that year teacher María Isabel Mezquita Balbuena was the delegate and led Puebla in the competition in the Children’s A category in the female branch, a team with which that year won a silver medal.
In 2016 another team was completed in the same category with which the bronze medal was obtained in Morelos, however, that year Mezquita Balbuena left the position with the change of government and with it, the contact between charrería and skirmishes with the Poblano Institute of Sport (INPODE) was lost.
“It was seven years that no one approached INPODE again and there was a gap until this 2024,” commented Isabel, who returned to the Union of Charro Associations of the State of Puebla, also taking on the challenge of preparing the Puebla delegation that, although it was not considered to participate in these CONADE National Games, they managed to believe in the project.
“Most of these children have years of competing in other categories and other teams, however, when forming a Puebla selection they had only four months to prepare as a team and despite this, the result was quite satisfactory,” she concluded.
Source: El Sol de Puebla
