Germán Chiaraviglio wrote a letter to tell of his health problem: “My world fell apart”

German Chiaraviglio faces the great challenge of his life at 37 years old. The outstanding Argentine athlete who was once world youth champion in pole vault He wrote an emotional letter in which he explained that he was going through a difficult health situation.

“The Olympic Games are starting soon and I felt like writing these words… After winning my silver medal at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games and living one of the most beautiful moments of my life, one of the worst moments I have ever experienced began,” said the Santa Fe native who participated in two Olympic Games.

“After some headaches, I began to consult and with complementary studies they indicated to me that I have severe kidney failure! At that moment my world fell apartthe scenarios that were coming were uncertain, complex, and suddenly I went from feeling like a strong and “healthy” athlete, to feeling like someone with a pathology and physically weak. As if in a second I had transformed into another person,” announced the owner of the Argentine record in this discipline with 5.75 meters, achieved at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games.

Chiaraviglio then said: “All these months were very hardmany medical consultations, new concepts and a new life trying to understand what was happening to me, with a thousand questions and doubts. After a few months and after a kidney biopsy I was able to put a name to the problem. An autoimmune disease that affects my kidney functiona new life partner, unwanted, but that from now on will be part of my daily luggage.”

“During all this time I tried to keep training, sometimes more, sometimes less, it was very difficult to focus, I was very affected and I could not perform as I intended. The only thing I was sure of was that moving was always better than not doing it. Even so, it was very difficult. After starting a treatment with many pills, and some logical side effects that I anticipated, I am wanting to put everything in order a bit. What will come? What will it be like? Not only from a health point of view but from a professional point of view, that activity that accompanied me and completely permeated me for more than 20 years. No answers yetor there are some, but it is not the time to demand them from me,” he admitted in his letter.

“It is time to go through what I have to do and recognize myself in this new place. Like every challenge I have had to live through throughout my life, now is the time to face a new one. Infinite thanks to all my family and friends, especially to Pía and Ámbar (his wife and daughter) who make my life happier every day. It is not an end or a beginning, it is another chapter in my story, which I continue to write every day,” he concluded. He holds the Argentine record in this discipline with 5.75 meters, achieved almost exactly nine years ago, on July 21, 2015, at the Pan American Games in Toronto.

Chiaraviglio, considered one of Argentina’s most iconic athletes of the past two decades, participated in the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 (finishing 11th in the final); he also finished 9th at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing 2015, with a jump of 5.65m. His achievements include a gold medal at the U18 World Championships in 2003, in Sherbrooke, he was a four-time South American champion, he has two silver medals at the Pan American Games (Toronto 2015 and Santiago 2023) and a bronze (Rio 2007), four golds at the Ibero-American Games, and a first place at the South American Games in Asunción 2022.

Chiaraviglio’s announcement was immediately supported by dozens of colleagues and athletes with whom she shared the Olympic Games and other competitions, such as Santiago Lange, Paula Pareto, Sebastián Crismanich, Facundo Conte, Matías Paredes, Sabrina Ameghino, Yamila Nizetich and Nora Vega.

“The fact that I did well as a kid, that I got used to winning, made me enter a reality that is not the usual one”Germán analyzes: “In sports you lose more than you win. And when I was hit by the shock of not winning, of understanding that it was not always like that, it cost me a lot,” he told LA NACION in an interview a couple of years ago. “But I am a person who always prefers to see the glass half full,” He explained: “If I hadn’t won when I was young and I had also been injured, I wouldn’t have had that past as a motivation. What was initially an anchor I was able to turn into a ladder.”