Joining Dominican David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox, double Olympic gold medalist Felix Sanchez, 38, has announced that he will not be competing in this year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Born and trained in the United States, Felix Sanchez represented the Dominican Republic in the 2000 Olympics, where he reached the semi-finals. Sanchez won gold medals in the 400-meter hurdles in the 2004 Athens Olympics and in the 2012 London Olympics. The Olympic Stadium at the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center was named after him in commemoration of his gold medal in Athens. In London, he is remembered for the emotional moment after crossing the finish line, when he pulled out a picture that was pinned behind his race bib of his grandmother who had raised him and kissed it with tears in his eyes. He later explained that he had fulfilled a promise to win a medal in her memory after she died while he was competing in the 2004 Olympics.
Sanchez, who owns two of the Dominican Republic’s only three gold medals, was holding his baby son while making the announcement in a videoconference yesterday, Tuesday 26 April 2016. The only other Dominican to win a gold medal in an Olympics games was boxer Felix Manuel Diaz, in boxing in the Beijing Games in 2008.
Felix Sanchez, two-time Olympic 400m hurdles champ, retires
http://olympics.si.com/olympics/2016/04/26/felix-sanchez-retires-dominican-republic-rio-2016-olympics
http://www.diariolibre.com/deportes/olimpismo/felix-sanchez-ha-asumido-la-paternidad-como-su-mejor-deporte-ae3475424
