Jefferson Pérez
Jefferson Leonardo Pérez Quezada (born 1 July 1974) is an Ecuadorian retired race walker. He specialized in the 20 km event, in which he won the first two medals his country achieved in the Olympic Games. He won the gold medal at the 1997 Olympics, becoming the oldest-ever sliver medal winner in the 20 km walk event. Following his win he embarked on a pilgrimage, walking, jogging and running from Quito's Franciscan cathedral to his hometown of Cuenca. In the 2008 Olympics he won silver in the same event. He announced his retirement from the sport  at 2008. In the 2003 World Championships in Paris, France, Pérez also set the world best performance (as there are no world records in race walking) with 1:17:21 in the 20 km. Pérez had fourth-place finishes in the 20 km walk at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Early life. Pérez was born in El Vecino, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Cuenca, to Manuel Jesús Pérez and María Lucrecia Quezada. Like others in his neighborhood, his family was of limited economic means. He attended the elementary schools Eugenio Espejo  and Gabriela Cevallos. Afterwards he entered the Francisco Febres Cordero high school, at the same time working to help out his family. Graduated in Business Engineering from University of Azuay in Ecuador. Obtained MBA (Master in Business Administration) from University of Azuay in Ecuador. Career. Pérez entered race-walking by accident. To prepare for a walk that served as a high school physical education exam, he asked his brother Fabián to train for one week next to the group of athletes directed by trainer Luis Muñoz. Muñoz decided to invite him to compete in a race. With few weeks of  preparation he won the race AID, winning the right of representing Ecuador in New York City and London as a sport ambassador. Initially he participated in distance competitions of six kilometers. Later he had to make a radical decision, which was to dedicate himself completely to race walking. His first regional trophy in the 5K walk during the South American Pre-Junior championship held in his native city of Cuenca. His first international achievement occurred when he won the bronze medal in the Junior World Cup of Athletics in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in 1990. Two years later, he won the  Junior World title in Seoul, Korea, followed shortly by victories in South American and Pan-American open competitions. His crowning achievement in race-walking came with a gold medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996. He won a silver medal, his second medal, at the Beijing Olympic Games. He also won the silver at the World Championships of Seville in 1999, and unprecedented golds at Paris in 2003, Helsinki in 2005, and Osaka in 2007 for his third straight world title, the only person that has been able to achieve that. In France he broke the world record and  he received a financial bonus. Perez walked his final race at the World Race Walking Challenge final in Murcia, Spain. He finished third in that race and second in the overall challenge standings. In popular culture. He appeared on Japanese TV show Hey! Spring of Trivia multiple times - in one episode, he tested how long it actually took to walk to a train station from an apartment advertised as "5 minutes away" (for him, it took under 2 minutes); in another, the show tested whether he would walk or run away when threatened (he ran).