"My life is intense," says Claudia Amura, 52 years old and with an inexhaustible curriculum. The elite chess player represented the country in nine Olympics, became the first to achieve the title Grand Master of America, lived months in a convent, years in Spain, survived a fatal accident, had four children, a fleeting passage through the Secretary of Sports of Alberto Rodríguez Saá and now campaigns to be mayor of Villa Merlo, in San Luis, accompanied by her dog "Bala" because she wants to raise awareness about animal care.
Amura came to Merlo to play the Pan American sub 20 in the early 90s. His radical father, Luis Amura, befriended the Peronist mayor at the time, Ricardo Chávez Sr., who recommended that he move to that town, famous for its microclimate, to treat his pulmonary emphysema. "That same year we returned from the World Cup in Chile and they asked us to leave the house we rented in the heart of Buenos Aires. And we went to Merlo," he says.
Claudia Amura as a young woman.
The twists of fate took her to other cities and Europe, but two years ago, and to recover better from the aftermath of the Covid that almost killed her, she returned to the Villa again and wants to be its mayor.
It is presented with the subslogan "Por + Merlo" within the slogan of the ruling party "Union for San Luis", which has Jorge "Gato" Fernández – the one chosen by Rodríguez Saá – as governor.
That electoral method makes him compete with 28 other candidates: 10 are also columned behind "Gato" Fernández. But he doesn't deny that. "With the slogans anyone can participate, I am not affiliated with any party," she says.
Pet friendly campaign
His campaign is atypical. She makes each visit and toured with Bala, a short-legged mongrel with woolly white hair, who even poses with her on posters. After adopting her, the vet discovered that the lump on her back was a bullet pellet.
"Now she's half famous and everyone loves her, but she was lying in the street for months. Unfortunately we do not love the poor animal that suffers on the street so much, while we pay a high price for another breed animal, manufactured for that. But my main message with the dog has to do with responsible animal ownership," she says.
Amura with the gubernatorial candidate and the dog at an activity in the neighboring town of Tilsarao.
Therefore, its electoral platform has a section dedicated to the subject. Castration, vaccination and control are the axes. "Control not from the fine and the canera, but from awareness," he says. In addition, adapt the tourist village with pet friendly hotels and restaurants to win tourists.
Convent life and fatal accident
As if he were a movie character who follows the narrative structure of classic fiction, Amura had his moment shortly after moving to Merlo. "I disappeared. I went from being an Olympic silver medalist to not even being told that there was a world championship to which I was classified," she recalls.
At that moment as a woman of faith that she is – she goes to Mass daily, teaches catechesis and chess in prisons – she began to rethink her life and accepted the invitation as a postulant to the novitiate. She went to live with the sisters of the Order of Mercy. Decision that dislocated his entire family. "I needed an answer," he says.
Claudia Amura lived with Mercedarian nuns from Córdoba.
And he did. After six months of prayer and teaching chess to the nuns, she left with the conviction that she wanted to start a family and that she still had much to offer the sport.
"It was a great experience for me, a deep spiritual retreat, but it brought me a media exposure that I did not imagine," he says. Escaping the press, she left the convent and went to visit her sister in Mexico, where she was reunited with Gilberto Hernández, another chess grandmaster, who became her husband and father of her four children.
Although the exhibition followed her there. "They took a picture of us and published a note in a newspaper titled: 'The nun left the convent and came to look for a boyfriend in Mexico,'" she says now resigned.
But the real rebirth was in 1999, when the car in which he was traveling – returning from a tournament – with his family collided head-on with a truck. She, her husband and their first baby were miraculously saved. His father and mother died instantly. "It's funny because they always said they wanted to die together," he says.
The car in which Claudia Amura was traveling with her parents who died on the spot. Photo Daniel Caceres.
From chess to politics
Her father, Luis Amura, had become a national deputy for the Christian Democracy and the political bug also bit his daughter.
Shortly after the accident they went to live in Spain but returned in 2004. After the World Chess Championship held in San Luis, Governor Alberto Rodríguez Saá summoned her for the provincial Chess program that they coordinate from the University of La Punta and she takes to schools.
He also chose her as his sports secretary in 2015, but she stepped down after seven months. "I came across things I didn't like," he says now.
Amura had gone as a candidate for councilor and provincial deputy but in places not expected, but to collaborate "push the cart" from behind. But this time she leads.
- Do you think you can win?
- I'm going to go as far as God wants. I'm supposed to measure well.
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