The Ecuadorian athlete Alex Quiñonez, a bronze medalist in the 200 meters at the Doha 2019 World Cup, was shot dead this Friday in the town of Colinas de la Florida, in the northwest of Guayaquil, Ecuador.
According to the newspaper El Universo,
several men wearing suits similar to those of the National Police
arrived in the neighborhood after 9 p.m. and shot Quiñonez and a friend of his, Christopher Arcalla Ramírez, who also died.
Authorities are investigating the motive for the attack.
Quiñonez, 32, was considered the best sprinter in the history of his country.
He represented Ecuador at the 2012 London Olympics, where he advanced to the 200-meter final.
He was a Pan-American champion in that distance in Lima and was a member of the Barcelona Football Club athletics team, where he already had three seasons.
Just the previous July he had won with the Barça club in the 200 meters of the League of Clubs of the Division of Honor, a competition held in Alicante.
Alex Quiñónez was the first Ecuadorian athlete to qualify for a 200-meter Olympic final, at the 2012 London Games, when he won bronze in Doha, Qatar, in 2019.Nariman El-Mofty / AP
The technical director of Barcelona's athletics division, Vicente Egido, said that the athletics family “is shocked by this news.
Álex was an excellent person and a great Barcelona player, a club man who was very integrated, delivered and enjoyed competing for Barça ”, according to a club statement.
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In Ecuador, sports authorities, supporters and other athletes have lamented the death of Quiñónez.
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"My heart is totally shattered, I can't find words to describe the emptiness I feel (...) rest in peace dear Alex, I'm going to miss you all my life," wrote Roberto Ibáñez, president of the Provincial Sports Federation, on Twitter. of the Guayas (Fedeguayas).
“Today we lost the best sprinter in our country.
You leave a very big void in Ecuadorian sports and in our hearts ”, wrote the Minister of Sports of Ecuador, Sebastián Palacios.
"Today we lost a great athlete, a person who made us dream, who made us excited," the Ecuadorian Ministry of Sports said in a statement.
Although he traveled to the Olympic Village, Quiñónez could not compete in the Tokyo Olympic Games this year, because the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) refused to lift a one-year sanction imposed by the international athletics federation for not notify on three occasions during the last year their location for doping tests.
The Ecuadorian Athletics Federation assured that it was administrative errors in the update of geolocation data and that the athlete did not intend to evade doping controls.
In the end, his representative took responsibility for the error and the original two-year sanction was reduced to 12 months, although that was not enough to compete in Tokyo.
“I'm not so good to say, because I wanted to give an emotion to all of Ecuador, but this is what it is.
I do not know how it happened, we must not blame anyone, it is a decision of God, as it can happen to anyone ... I am sorry with all my heart and I hope this continues, "said Quiñónez on that occasion, as published by the newspaper El Universo.