Santiago 2023: Rubén Limardo wants to bring glory to Venezuela and his family
How the fencer leans on family ties to find success
Fencer Rubén Limardo has an Olympic gold medal he won at London 2012, and two silver world championship medals he won in épée. But the bronze he won at the World Fencing Championships in 2023 hit different than the others because it was a team medal.
“Truthfully it was very exciting, because we’ve been working all our lives to achieve this objective, and a result for the team,” Limardo said in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com. “But I enjoy it more because I have my two brothers in this Venezuelan team. We always dreamed and now this gives us a great chance to fight for a medal at the Olympics.”
Fencing has been a family affair from day one. Limardo was introduced to the sport by his uncle Ruperto, who learned fencing while studying in Hungary in the 1980s. Ruperto brought the sport back to Venezuela, and taught his nephews about fencing. Now, Ruperto’s nephews are helping make Venezuela a country not to be dismissed in the sport. Only Italy and France placed ahead of Venezuela in the team épée event at the 2023 world championships.
“It was very difficult, but I think that when things are hard you enjoy them more. So a bronze medal for us for the first time in the history of our country, it makes me really happy that a lot of countries like France and Italy congratulated us,” he said. “Because maybe in Italy or France if we won, there’s a lot of history so we’d just be one more [winner]. But we are heroes in our country and truthfully that has left a great impression on me, and I’m still celebrating and happy.”
Rubén won next to his brothers Jesus and Francisco, and Grabiel Lugo. Though he was used to fencing with his brothers, he also said there are difficulties in teaming up with family.
“It’s not easy, because emotions can be connected to teamwork, you have to be very focused, very calm and deal with the instructions well. On this occasion, we let the coach address each athlete, but as brothers and a team we only offer support, motivational words, and I think it has worked very well for us,” Rubén said. “In the past there were problems because as brothers, we didn’t know how to differentiate the way of communicating. The emotions sometimes got to us and we had to be aware of them in order to manage them. But this time we worked as a team.”
Ruben Limardo at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics
Big expectations for the Pan American Games
The next challenge for Limardo is the Pan American Games. He has eight Pan Am medals, dating back to the 2011 Pan Ams in Guadalajara. In 2019, he faced off in the épée final with his brother, Jesus. He is hoping to add to his and Venezuela’s medal total.
“Let's hope we can get to the final to give Venezuela a medal. I know that it is not going to be easy and well, the approach, our approach is as a team, to look for that team [spirit] that we did not find in Lima 2019, that we can achieve it in Chile,” Limardo said.
He knows that he will be a favourite heading into the Pan American fencing events, but he will rely on his experience to deal with the pressure.
“As a favourite, the pressure is always on. It’s there that experience helps you dominate this pressure and fear that comes to you, because we are human beings. I may be an athlete with a lot of titles, but I still get nervous, that attack of nerves, that anxiety,” Limardo said. “But experience helps a lot when it comes to controlling all of that and obviously I’m always going to be objective, focused on the gold, which is the most important thing for us.”
The next event on Gascón’s mind is, of course, the Paris 2024 Olympics. With Veneuzela winning a bronze medal at Worlds, and Limardo’s own history of winning medals, he’s hoping to bring some momentum into the Olympics.
"[At Paris 2024] the team has the quality to compete against the best. We hope that Venezuela, with my team, can win a medal at Paris 2024.”