MEXICO CITY.-The pilot Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez broke into tears when the National Anthem was sounded when he was awarded after winning the Sakhir Grand Prix, in Bahrain.
Pérez gave Mexico a Formula One win after years when Pedro Rodríguez won the Belgian Grand Prix in 1970.
It is the first time that Pérez has won in the top category of world motorsports after ten seasons in which he accumulated ten podiums, including his second this year after taking second place in Turkey in November.
‘Checo’, who runs for the Racing Point team, won at Sakhir after starting in last place on the grid, to beat Frenchman Esteban Ocon, second, and his teammate, Canadian Lance Stroll, third.
Seeing the checkered flag as first at the finish line was given to Pérez just one race away from finishing the 2020 Formula 1 season and with his future uncertain in 2021, in which he has the option of taking a year off.
The triumph of ‘Checo’, likewise, is part of the most outstanding achievements of Mexican sports so far this century.
Other successes have been the Olympic gold medal of the Mexican soccer team in the London 2012 jousts when they beat the Brazilian team led by Neymar and Hulk in the final, by 1-2 with a double by Oribe Peralta.
In this century, Pérez’s country has also achieved two world soccer titles in the sub’17 category, in the tournaments of Peru 2005 and Mexico 2011.
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Pachuca won the only title of a Mexican club at the Copa Sudamericana in 2006 by beating Chile’s Colo-Colo 3-2.
In boxing, in November 2019 Saúl ‘Canelo’ Álvarez defeated Russian Sergey Kovalev to snatch the light heavyweight title of the World Boxing Organization (WBO), which meant his fourth belt in different weights: before he won in super welterweight, middleweight and super middleweight .
Andy Ruiz, born in the United States, but of Mexican parents, became the first with the nationality of the country to proclaim himself world heavyweight champion by defeating Englishman Anthony Joshua in June 2019.
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María del Rosario Espinoza and Guillermo Pérez won gold medals in taekwondo at the 2008 Tokyo Olympic Games.
And in athletics, Ana Guevara was world champion in 2003 and the jumper Paola Espinosa won Olympic silver in London 2012 and bronze in Beijing 2008, in addition to the world title in the 2009 championships.
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