César Castillo and Raimundo Medina's duo won gold in South American Table Tennis

Published at: 27/06/2025 07:55 PM

César Castillo and Raimundo Medina won the gold medal in the men's doubles and Roxy González and Camila Ovando won the silver medal in women's respectively in the South American Table Tennis Championship held at the Villa Deportiva in Lima, Peru.

The Venezuelan duo of Castillo and Medina recovered from an adverse first game of 7-11 to dominate the next three matches 11-7, 11-7 and 11-3 against Argentines Martín Betancort and Francisco Sanchi and win the first gold medal for Venezuela in this regional competition.

The victory was built on the basis of the solvency of the services in which they obtained 21 out of 40 points and with a solid defense to get another 19 units with the serves of the opponents.

Castillo and Medina had reached this grand final for gold, after defeating Peruvians Juan Loli and Keiji Takeda 3-2 (11-7, 10-12, 11-8, 12-14 and 11-6), dominating the Chilean duo of Gustavo Gómez and Alfonso Olave 3-2 (13-11, 10-12, 11-5 and 11-7) in the semifinals, 3-1 (12-10, 11-9, 10-12 and 15-13) of Paraguayans Iván Pastor and Marcelo Aguirre fell apart.

Women's runners-up

In the women's doubles, González and Ovando gave way in the decisive match for gold 3-2 (4-11, 11-9, 11-5, 4-11 and 7-11), after dominating a couple of sets, but failed to complete the third to take the victory against the Australs, Paulina Vega and Daniela Ortega.

On their way to the final, the Creole couple had dominated 3-0 (11-9, 11-8 and 11-3) the Incas Erika Yamanaka and Ana Yenobi; in the eighth round they beat the Brazilians Julia Takahashi and Victoria Strassburguer 3-1 (11-5, 12-14, 11-9 and 11-4); and in the semifinals 3-1 (10-12, 13-11, 11-6 and 11-9) the Argentines Ana Codina and Candela Moreno.

Venezuela will now go for more medals in the men's and women's team competitions that run until Sunday, when the South American Table Tennis Championship will end.

Mazo News Team