They were born outside of Peru, but their blood makes them love the country: the water polo players who won gold at the Bolivarianos

The results are the result of work that has been going on for some time against all odds, since it is not a popular discipline in the country. Water polo teams were established in the different clubs in the country and for the Pan American Games in Lima 2019 a scouting job was carried out that today already has its results.

This search for talent abroad found five girls of Peruvian descent. He talked to them and today they are part of the team. Sisters Anna and Elisa López Deza -from a Trujillo family- play at Vallirana in Barcelona. Sisters Rebeca and Carolina Rodríguez Pinto, of Arequipa descent, play for the Concepción club in Madrid. While the goalkeeper Alyssa Barnuevo Castro comes from the University of California Berkeley.

The golden girls:

• Abigail Sirio Urquiza
• Alyssa Barnuevo Castro
• Anna Lopez Deza
• Areli Rolando Sinarahua
• Belen Torres Gonzalez
• Carolina Rodriguez Pinto
• Daniela Torres Santa Maria
• Diana Garnica Franco
• Elisa Lopez Deza
• Maria Fe Menacho Huapaya
• Miranda Nieto Cebreros
• Rebecca Rodriguez Pinto
• Stefanny Alvarez Ccama

blood stories

The López Deza sisters and the porter Barnuevo were able to be at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games and felt what it means to represent Peru, from the enthusiasm of an audience that always supports to the conditions in which they participate. We were able to learn that the girls had to stay at a coach’s house, and although the results were not the best, they discovered that there was talent to exploit.

The team is between the ages of 18 and 21, which gives them room to continue growing. “Last year we qualified for the U20 World Cup in Israel. They lost, but with quite decent results”, tells us Vicente Hinojosa, director of water polo for the Swimming Federation. However, the girls had to sell raffles to say present at that event.

Still, now there were doubts about sending the team to Valledupar, but the trip was achieved and the girls responded. Without having anywhere to train in Lima (they cannot access Videna and Campo de Marte is under repair), they had to ‘borrow’ the Regatas and arrived in Colombia without training together with the girls who came from abroad. Despite all this, they moved forward.

“We are very young, perhaps performance is needed, but we are very strong. With a technical command and work from now on, this team can have better results”, Elisa López, 21, tells us from Barcelona. From the ‘comforts’ of their clubs in Spain they took with the Peruvian reality, but decided to push forward. “There is a clash of realities. There are girls who have been playing for a couple of years, when I have been playing since I was 5 years old”he tells us, but his idea is to keep moving forward.

“In the starting team we play the 5 outsiders, but we need the help of the whole team. We bring more technique, more experience, but without the whole team you can’t get ahead. They support, encourage”tells us about the work that is done as a team.

From Peruvian mothers, they agreed to represent Peru for the honor of the place “where we come from, where my mother is from”, as she tells us. Now they want new challenges and in October they will have the South Americans in Paraguay where they will go to confirm the growth of Peruvian water polo.