Pan American Games 2023: The weight of expectation rests easy on the shoulders of Ecuador’s Angie Palacios Dajomes
After setting a new weightlifting world record at the Grand Prix in Cuba and a silver medal at the World Championships last September, the 23-year-old returns to competition in Santiago 2023, ‘hungry for more’. She is seeking her first gold at the Pan American Games.
Weightlifting
The Dajomes sisters are a symbol of perseverance and dedication in Ecuadorian sport.
Angie Palacios Dajomes was inspired to weightlifting by her older sister Neisi Dajomes Barrera, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion.
As siblings, they have been sharing the experience of lifting together in training and at competitions around the world, that has further deepened their love for the sport that runs deep in their family.
The two sisters stood out when they competed at the 2023 Pan American Championships, the Grand Prix in Havana, and again at the recently held World Championships in Riyadh.
For the first time in years, Palacios will be the family’s sole participant at the latest edition of the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile. She hopes to channel that pressure into another massive lift after her world record last June.
The 2023 world silver medallist is a favourite for the Women's 71kg title at the Giimnasio Chimkowe, the venue of the Santiago 2023 weightlifting competition from 21-24 October.
For Angie Palacios, the strength to lift comes from within
Growing up, Angie, often looked up to her sister in and out of their home in Shell, Pastaza, a city on the western edge of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
The daughters of Colombian refugees honed their skills at a small local gym in the Ecuadorian town where they resettled after escaping violence in their home country.
“It was hard. The cold, being far away, we cried the first few days, but then I filled myself with many things and learned to find value,” Angie recalled to expreso.ec during a visit to a charity home where they spent part of their childhood.
She idolized her sister and admired her strength.
Neisi’s love for weightlifting ignited her own passion.
Their older brother Javier introduced Neisi to weightlifting, and she in return inspired three of her eight siblings – sisters Angie and Jessica, a fast-rising youth lifter, and brother German - the reigning Pan-American junior champ.
They have been the unmissable sister act at events, including at the Tokyo Games where Neisi became her nation’s first woman to win an Olympic gold in weightlifting, in the women’s 76kg.
“It is satisfying to have my sister in the same sport, we help each other, and she gives me lots of advice, and pushes me to work hard and enjoy weightlifting. She is my role model and the one who always supports me," the 23-year-old told Ecuador en Vivo. of Neisi who’s older by two years.
"She is my younger sister, the one I have watched growing in weightlifting since she was a child, so I am proud to be able to compete with her. I am really happy when she gets medals,” added Neisi.
“Angie is extremely motivated. “She says 'I want to be just like Neisi', but I tell her 'you're being better than Neisi'. At 22 years old, she has broken a world record.”
Neisi was referring to last June’s Grand Prix in Cuba where Angie starred, winning three gold medals and breaking a world record, in the snatch of her 71kg class.
“Since my first competition in 2015, I went with Neisi, she always motivates me. When I go out to the lifting platform [at competition] I concentrate and only listen to Neisi's encouraging voice. That gives me strength ,” Angie said of Neisi’s supporting role.
Switching from track to lifting weights at 12
It has been a fast rise in the sport for Angie.
Her talent, while only 14, was so persuasive she was picked to represent her country at the 2015 World Youth Championships, where the Ecuadorian reached the final.
Later that year, the prodigy, who settled on weightlifting at the age of 12 after switching from track, won the Pan American Youth title.
“The first time I went to a weightlifting gym I was 10 years old, when I went to see my brother's training session,” she recalled in a television interview. “Then I was running, very fast and liked sprinting. I was doing the 100m-120m. I once did the 400m, but it nearly finished me. But I never fully devoted myself to athletics because shortly after I went into weightlifting.”
“At first, I did feel insecure, as since I was a young girl, I have always had big arms, super defined. In school, sometimes they’d say to me like, 'Oh watch it, your body is going to become like a man, or something like that’. I told myself, ‘Yes, it’s true’. But later I began to realize that this is what I am and that’s how they have to accept me. And if they like it, fine, if not then too bad, this is how I am.”
Another period of self-doubt again consumed her at the peak of her career, when she almost quit the sport.
“There was a time when I felt completely tired, exhausted physically, psychologically. I didn’t want to know anything about weights any more, I didn’t want to know anything, nothing, nothing. It was a moment I felt... I can’t take it any more.”
“But there were people who were there to try to motivate me not to lose that vision that I had from a very young age. They helped me lean back into sports and keep working. The main one was my sister [Neisi], who always told me, ‘No, you have to keep going’."
It was a moment of reflection not only on her sport but her life.
They had overcome hardships and the death of their brother Javier, and mother, to become inspirations far and wide.
“Although we are from a very-low-income family, thanks to God our effort and dedication, our lives have changed a lot.”
Tokyo Olympics - a life changing moment
The inspiration to keep going got stronger after Tokyo 2020 in 2021.
“My life changed completely, for the better!” she told Saga Sports.
“My experience at the Olympic Games was very, very nice. Before arriving at the Olympic Games I was a different person, a little girl, super nervous, seeing so many athletes who have had like more Olympic experience. Knowing that the whole world was looking at me was something big. It helped me mature a lot on a sporting level. It helped me to clarify my goals a lot more, broaden my mind more, to want more.”
Since finishing sixth at her debut Olympics, the 2023 world silver medallist has won two Pan American titles and reached the podium at the worlds twice.
“I have been told that the people who go far are the people who are hungry. Well, the Olympics opened up my appetite much more. So, what I experienced at the Olympic Games was something completely beautiful.” - Angie Palacios to Saga Sports
In Lima, the self-confessed reggaeton and salsa lover was very determined as she wasn’t just lifting for herself. Angie was doing it in the memory of her mother, who passed on two months before the 2019 Pan Am Games.
The younger Dajomes will miss her role model’s support at Santiago 2023, where she goes in as a favourite for gold in the competitive 71kg category. The Games also offer her a chance to boost her Olympic Qualification ranking for Paris.
She wants to continue the run of success for their special weightlifting family.
“Seeing that many children want to become like us or become much more than us, also motivates me a lot.”