On January 3, Nicolas Claveau, Venezuela’s only representative at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, woke up in his home in Canada and thought his Olympic dream was gone when he saw on television that the United States had captured President Nicolás Maduro.
“The initial plan was to go to Venezuela in the first week of the year to complete the mandatory documentation required by the International Olympic Committee, but everyone knows what happened afterwards, so it was not possible to travel. At that moment, I thought that my plan to go to the Games with Venezuela would not work”, acknowledged Claveau, a cross-country skier, in an interview with AFP, recalling the anguish of those moments.
He was born 20 years ago in Lechería (Anzoátegui state, east of Caracas), where his father worked as a water treatment engineer, and lived there until he was two years old.
Claveau had documents since he was a baby, but they had expired many years ago as he had never returned to the country since then.
“I needed to get a Venezuelan passport, and I needed to do it there; I couldn’t do it in Canada. Without it, I wouldn’t go to the Olympic Games,” he explained in Spanish, a language he learned mainly during the two and a half years he spent with his family in Peru during his childhood, where his father also went to work on another project.
Claveau couldn’t stop watching the news in early January.
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, spoke about the new situation in Venezuela, claiming to have it under control, and two days after the operation to capture Maduro, Delcy Rodríguez took office as the country’s new interim president.
“A week after everything that happened, the Venezuelan Olympic Committee contacted me to say that everything was fine and that I could go to Caracas, that everything was ready. That’s when my hopes were rekindled,” he recalled.
“Like a king”
Nicolas Claveau arrived in Venezuela just two weeks before the start of the Olympic Games and managed to complete the necessary bureaucratic procedures.
“When I arrived in Caracas, I was received like a king. The days went well; I met many people there, from the Olympic Committee, many athletes and also the Minister of Sports, Franklin Cardillo”, says the engineering student.
“At first, I was scared because I thought it could be a dangerous place, considering the news we receive in Canada, which is generally bad about the country, but everything went well on the trip. I saw Caracas; it was a wonderful trip. I gave interviews for television”, he confesses, moved and fascinated by this new visibility.
“I was very happy with that.” Claveau then returned to Quebec, where he has lived with his family for more than a decade and where he has been cross-country skiing since he was 10 years old.
Initially, he competed for Canada, but he knew that becoming an Olympic athlete for that country was an almost impossible mission due to the strong competition. So, a year ago, he came up with a plan B: why not try to go to Milan-Cortina representing his home country?
He discovered that Venezuela had a Ski Federation, contacted them and explained his situation. In November, he achieved Olympic qualification in Finland, becoming the sixth person in the country’s history to represent Venezuela at the Winter Olympics.
“The important thing is to participate”
“I don’t have the necessary level to go to the Games with Canada. The level in Canada is much higher than in Venezuela, where there are just two of us practicing cross-country skiing”, he explains.
He is experiencing the Olympics like a child on Christmas morning: he was seen happy and dancing during the opening ceremony parade, where, of course, he was the country’s flag bearer, and he didn’t lose his smile on Tuesday (10), after finishing in 88th place among 94 competitors in the speed test of his sport.
On Friday, he has another test, the 10 km interval race, in which he hopes for a better result.
In a few months, he plans to return to Venezuela for vacation.
“I would love to visit Lechería, the city where I was born,” he says with a smile.
