Andrea Vargas, who recently took gold at the Pan-American games this past August, leaves the World Championships with the best performance by any Costa Rican in the history of the games.  The WAC is a biennial, global athletics competition which is organized by the International Association of Athletics Federations.  The competitions comprise 209 countries competing in 49 overall events, which last over a ten-day period.  This last Saturday, Vargas set a Costa Rican record for the 100-meter hurdles in just the first round of races, and beating her national record this time and twice after, including the final where she finished 12.64 seconds, improving on her time from the semifinal by a hundredth of a second. “I tried to see it as a normal competition, just do my best. Reaching the final, I knew it was very hard, but nothing is lost with trying. The first approach was to move to the semifinals, then in the semifinal to go with everything to see if you could be in the final. I made it. I am very excited to have been in the final.”  The other Tico competitors in the Championships were Gabriela Traña, who placed 40th in marathon, Roberto Sawyers, eliminated qualifying round of hammer throw and Andrea’s sister, Noelia, who finished 36 in the 20 Km race walk.

*photos by La Nacion