The Quintana Roo is the first Mexican representative in Adaptive Archery in history. He participates in the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics.
Omar suffered a spinal cord injury at the age of seventeen while receiving a ride to Cancun for summer break. The car tragically didn’t make it to Cancun, as there was an accident–killing one of the passengers and permanently paralyzing Omar from the waist down. As the driver’s car was uninsured, Omar received zero compensation for life-changing injuries sustained. His chronic pain from the accident has affected every facet of his life.
After the accident Omar had spine surgery and then over a year of bed-ridden recovery. It was after that that Omar immediately embarked on his athletic career, playing wheelchair basketball at the national level for nearly fourteen years before transitioning in 2014 to compound archery. The story of this transition is phenomenal in and of itself. Omar was actually recruited by a local archery coach named Hilda Marchell, who is still his coach to this day. She was looking for someone to develop as an athlete in compound para-archery, a category never before represented by a Mexican athlete in the Paralympics. Together they discovered an amazing partnership as Omar began competing at the national level that very same year, and to this date has won 37 medals.
This past March, Omar made history by winning two gold medals at the Para-Panamerican games in Monterrey, becoming the first Mexican in history to win a spot at the Paralympics for compound archery.
Although receiving an abundance of press there has been little financially to show for it. Omar has won so many medals for Mexico and is investing his whole self into representing his country at the Paralympics while still living as a disabled individual in a developing country. This is the hard truth. As it stands Omar signed a contract that he must practice 6 days a week and shoot over 150 arrows a day. As you can imagine this means that it is essentially a job, but unfortunately Mexico has less subsidized funding for the paralympics. So while some expenses are covered, the cost of living, a big part of the necessary equipment, and the very needed physical therapy aren’t. Most paralympic athletes at this level have all of these expenses paid for by their respective Governments.
Fundación Zamna A.C. raises funds so that Omar can train optimally for Tokyo 2021, to upgrade his archery equipment and to cover the subsistence allowance for his trip to Tokyo and future tournaments.
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