London Calling: Limardo's Golden Touch

For the first time in forty-four years a Venezuelan athlete has captured gold at the Olympics.

Ruben Limardo Gascon, who will celebrate his twenty-seventh birthday on Friday, captured the top prize in men’s individual épée fencing on Wednesday.

Limardo won Venezuela’s first-ever medal in fencing and first medal at the London Games after beating Norway's Bartosz Piasecki 15-10 in the final match. The twelfth-seeded combatant from Ciudad Bolivar took an early lead in the title bout and held on against his less seasoned rival.

Despite several early upsets in the competition, Limardo won a series of close matches in order to reach the gold medal combat. His trickiest test came in the semifinal when he beat Seth Kelsey of the U.S. in overtime by a score of 6-5.

“I dedicate (this medal) to all the Venezuelan people and also the children who are the country’s future,” Limardo reportedly said after the medal ceremony. He also dedicated his gold medal to his late mother who he claimed was “accompanying me from heaven.”

In other recent medal-winning results from Latino and Latin American athletes:

London Calling: Ouro

The first gold medal won by a Latin American athlete at this year’s Olympics came from a tenacious Brazilian martial artist.

Sarah Menezes won the under-48kg women’s judo gold on Saturday after beating defending champion Alina Dumitru of Romania in the final.

Menezes, who upset world number one Tomoko Fukumi to reach the gold medal bout, fought a tough and defensive bout against Dumitru. The patience from the twenty-two-year-old paid off when she threw the Romanian twice in the final minute.

“I feel like I’m floating!” said Menezes to the Brazilian press after capturing the gold. Her victory was the pinnacle of a judo career that she admitted started “as a joke” thirteen years ago.

Menezes wasn’t the only Brazilian to obtain a medal on Saturday. Felipe Kitadei, who superstitiously touched the judo ring before each one of his bouts, won bronze in the under-60kg men’s category. Swimmer Thiago Pereira finished behind Ryan Lochte of the U.S. and won silver in the men’s 400-meter individual medley.

In other Olympics results from Saturday: