Hay victorias que no siempre se miden en centésimas o medallas, sino en la capacidad de levantarse en cada amanecer, cuando el cuerpo grita que no se puede y el alma responde adelante.

Esa es la esencia de Douglas Andrés Romero Flores (18 años), un nadador juvenil hondureño que lleva el alma de su país grabada en cada brazada y cuya historia es un recuerdo a la resiliencia que tienen los nadadores.

“La clave para la victoria a menudo reside en dar lo mejor de uno mismo cuando uno se siente peor”, confiesa Douglas, mientras prepara su participación en el Mundial Juvenil de Natación en Otopeni, Rumania, que será en agosto 2025.

Douglas Romero asegura que su pasión por la natación lo llevará algun día a ser el mejor nadador de Centroamérica.

Su objetivo es claro: romper el récord nacional en 50 metros dorso (categoría Juvenil B). “Estoy seguro de que puedo bajar mis tiempos, estoy a centésimas de lograrlo y estoy trabajando con ese objetivo”, afirma con una convicción que quiebra cualquier duda.

Sus inicios, a los 9 años en la piscina del colegio La Salle de San Pedro Sula, fueron el preludio de una pasión inquebrantable. Tras el guía inicial de Eder Espinal y el impulso fundamental de Carlos Cerrato (Municipalidad SPS), hoy su brújula técnica es José Leonardo “Coro” González, a quien atribuye su mejor nivel actual. Pero el trayecto no ha sido un río tranquilo.

En 2023, el golpe más duro: una lesión en la rodilla, ligamento cruzado, jugando como delantero en el colegio. Como comenta Douglas, ese es también otro sueño futbolero que impacta a los nadadores por la cultura de nuestro país “Si no fuera nadador, sería delantero en San Pedro Sula, aunque soy fan de un club de Tegucigalpa”).

Más de un año de rehabilitación, dolor y paciencia. “Hay que hacer las cosas que no te gustan, como si las disfrutaras”, reflexiona sobre esos días oscuros.

“Hay que levantarse todos los días a entrenar duro, luchar con la fatiga, el cansancio, los compromisos estudiantiles”, describe su rutina.

Mientras otros duermen, él nada en el agua de las piscinas del Club Delfines Sampedranos, sabiendo que “las medallas se ganan en los entrenamientos”. Su primera medalla –intercolegial, en relevos– fue solo el inicio. Hoy, su mirada está puesta en romper récords nacionales absolutos y convertirse en “el mejor nadador de Honduras y Centroamérica”.

Detrás de cada logro, un faro: su madre, Angélica Flores. “Ella es mi mayor fan, mi motor en los momentos de frustración”, dice Douglas, con voz emocionada. En las gradas con su silla plegable o en casa, su presencia es el abrazo invisible que lo impulsa.

Pero una sombra nubla el camino a Rumania: la falta de recursos. Douglas y otros 17 nadadores juveniles hondureños luchan por financiar su sueño mundialista. Su llamado es claro y urgente:

“No tenemos los recursos. Le pido a la Señora Presidenta Xiomara Castro que nos ayude a cumplir nuestros sueños y poner en alto el nombre de nuestro país a nivel internacional. Siempre hay apoyo para el fútbol… Si fueran jugadores de fútbol los clasificados a un Mundial juvenil, el Gobierno los apoyaría con toda la logística. ¡Eso debe cambiar!”.

“Uno se sorprende de como hay apoyo para otros deportes. Vino Messi a San Pedro Sula y remodelaron el estadio las áreas aledañas y nosotros por nuestro lado vimos como a los nadadores que incluso les cancelaron las clases en el complejo de natación que está en el Olímpico, son cosas que definitivamente nos marcan como atletas”.

Douglas admira a Michael Phelps, no solo por sus medallas, sino por su batalla contra la depresión, esa sombra que también acecha a los atletas. Como él, Douglas entiende que la grandeza se forja en la adversidad. Su prueba favorita es el 100 mariposa –uno de los estilos más exigentes de natación, pero es en el dorso donde su cuerpo habla con más elocuencia.

“Hay que entrenar duro, para competir y ganarle a los más duros”, sentencia. Cada brazada suya es un acto de fe: en el sacrificio, en su madre, en los entrenadores que moldearon su técnica, y en un país al que anhela representar con orgullo en Rumania.

Douglas Romero sigue nadando por las madrugadas. Luchas no solo contra el agua o el cronómetro para bajar sus marcas, sino contra la indiferencia. Su historia es un recordatorio: los sueños no flotan, se construyen con lágrimas, sudor y un corazón que se niega a hundirse.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron took first place, ahead of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, in the first round of France’s presidential election on Sunday, but he is on course for a far closer second-round clash than five years ago.

While polling suggests Macron should retain the presidency in two weeks, first round results show the incumbent can’t rest on his laurels.

Le Pen will be able to count on voters from far-right TV-pundit-turned-politician Eric Zemmour, who called on his supporters to back her on April 24. Meanwhile, leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon fared better than expected and brings a heavy dose of uncertainty to the mix as his voters are a diverse bunch. Many are likely to abstain in the second round, while others will divide up between the French president and Le Pen.

Here are five takeaways from the presidential election’s first round:

“Politics is war without bloodshed
while war is politics with bloodshed.”

France’s repeat of the 2017 runoff confirms Macron’s and Le Pen’s own political analysis: That the divide between the left and the right is no longer relevant in France and has been replaced by an opposition between a mainstream bloc that is pro-European and open to the outside world on one side, and nationalists on the other. Both candidates scored higher than five years ago, leaving the traditional right and left in an even more shambolic state than before. Macron went from 24 percent in 2017 in the first round to 27.6 percent Sunday and Le Pen went from 21.3 percent to 23.4 percent.

The gap between them is higher than last time around, showing that Macron has managed to drum up the most votes despite controversies in the campaign’s last mile, including over the state’s overuse of consulting firms. But the far-right bloc — Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour and nationalist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan combined — garnered than 30 percent of the total vote.

I describe the “fun” parts of Only Yesterday because they’re wonderful, but also to make a point about the origin story we’ve learned about the mood of the ’20s. Looking back at Allen’s work from the vantage point of 1986, historian David M. Kennedy argued that the biggest failing of the book was its lack of historical depth: “Rarely did Allen forge an explanatory chain whose links ran back more deeply into the past than 1917.” And indeed, Allen seemed to blame World War I for every ash-covered carpet and scarred dining table.

Allen is also really good at describing parties—or, at least, the ones the middle class and upper class attended. The historian wrote about how women taking up smoking had “strewed the dinner table with their ashes, snatched a puff between the acts, invaded the masculine sanctity of the club car, and forced department stores to place ornamental ash-trays between the chairs in their women’s shoe departments.” In what I think may be the best passage in the book, Allen described the way 1920s partygoers stepped all over every previous genteel convention:

Anyway, let’s get to that fun. A very joyful book to read about the decade is Frederick Lewis Allen’s Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s, which Allen—a blueblood journalist and editor at Harper’s—published in 1931. The book chronicles all of the movement and motion that makes the decade sexy, and doesn’t seem to miss a fad.

The property, complete with a 30-seat screening room, a 100-seat amphitheater and a swimming pond with sandy beach and outdoor shower, was asking about $40 million, but J. Lo managed to make it hers for $28 million. As the Bronx native acquires a new home in California, she is trying to sell a gated compound.

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Perhaps by remembering the twenties merely as an enchanting series of novelties or the crude afterthought of a simpler past, we preserve the illusion of our own simple innocence,” mused historian Paula Fass in the introduction to her book The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s.

Whether that means there will be a longer-term far-right alliance is an open question. Nicolas Bay and Gilbert Collard — two MEPs who left Le Pen’s party to join Zemmour — didn’t endorse a possible alliance with Le Pen, in case she wins the second round.

Zemmour, a 63-year-old TV pundit-turned-politician, was once tipped to come second behind Macron, back in October. But he plummeted spectacularly in the polls after suffering from a perceived lack of credibility as the Ukraine war started and former comments praising Russian President Vladimir Putin resurfaced. He scored a measly 7 percent. Despite their bitter and unrelenting fighting throughout the campaign, he swiftly endorsed Marine Le Pen.

“I have disagreements with Marine Le Pen,” Zemmour said at his concession speech Sunday, “but there is a man facing Marine Le Pen who has let in 2 million immigrants … who would therefore do worse if he were reelected — it is for this reason that I call on my voters to vote for Marine Le Pen.”

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron took first place, ahead of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, in the first round of France’s presidential election on Sunday, but he is on course for a far closer second-round clash than five years ago.

While polling suggests Macron should retain the presidency in two weeks, first round results show the incumbent can’t rest on his laurels.

Le Pen will be able to count on voters from far-right TV-pundit-turned-politician Eric Zemmour, who called on his supporters to back her on April 24. Meanwhile, leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon fared better than expected and brings a heavy dose of uncertainty to the mix as his voters are a diverse bunch. Many are likely to abstain in the second round, while others will divide up between the French president and Le Pen.

Here are five takeaways from the presidential election’s first round:

“Politics is war without bloodshed
while war is politics with bloodshed.”

France’s repeat of the 2017 runoff confirms Macron’s and Le Pen’s own political analysis: That the divide between the left and the right is no longer relevant in France and has been replaced by an opposition between a mainstream bloc that is pro-European and open to the outside world on one side, and nationalists on the other. Both candidates scored higher than five years ago, leaving the traditional right and left in an even more shambolic state than before. Macron went from 24 percent in 2017 in the first round to 27.6 percent Sunday and Le Pen went from 21.3 percent to 23.4 percent.

The gap between them is higher than last time around, showing that Macron has managed to drum up the most votes despite controversies in the campaign’s last mile, including over the state’s overuse of consulting firms. But the far-right bloc — Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour and nationalist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan combined — garnered than 30 percent of the total vote.

I describe the “fun” parts of Only Yesterday because they’re wonderful, but also to make a point about the origin story we’ve learned about the mood of the ’20s. Looking back at Allen’s work from the vantage point of 1986, historian David M. Kennedy argued that the biggest failing of the book was its lack of historical depth: “Rarely did Allen forge an explanatory chain whose links ran back more deeply into the past than 1917.” And indeed, Allen seemed to blame World War I for every ash-covered carpet and scarred dining table.

Allen is also really good at describing parties—or, at least, the ones the middle class and upper class attended. The historian wrote about how women taking up smoking had “strewed the dinner table with their ashes, snatched a puff between the acts, invaded the masculine sanctity of the club car, and forced department stores to place ornamental ash-trays between the chairs in their women’s shoe departments.” In what I think may be the best passage in the book, Allen described the way 1920s partygoers stepped all over every previous genteel convention:

Anyway, let’s get to that fun. A very joyful book to read about the decade is Frederick Lewis Allen’s Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s, which Allen—a blueblood journalist and editor at Harper’s—published in 1931. The book chronicles all of the movement and motion that makes the decade sexy, and doesn’t seem to miss a fad.

The property, complete with a 30-seat screening room, a 100-seat amphitheater and a swimming pond with sandy beach and outdoor shower, was asking about $40 million, but J. Lo managed to make it hers for $28 million. As the Bronx native acquires a new home in California, she is trying to sell a gated compound.

Popular in human interest:

• Parents Are Fed Up With Their Kids’ Expensive Berry Habits
• 15 Mother’s Day Gifts for the Burned-Out Mom in Your Life
• Really Though, What Jeans Are in Style Now?
• Don’t Fall for Fertility Fearmongering About Trans Men

Perhaps by remembering the twenties merely as an enchanting series of novelties or the crude afterthought of a simpler past, we preserve the illusion of our own simple innocence,” mused historian Paula Fass in the introduction to her book The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s.

Whether that means there will be a longer-term far-right alliance is an open question. Nicolas Bay and Gilbert Collard — two MEPs who left Le Pen’s party to join Zemmour — didn’t endorse a possible alliance with Le Pen, in case she wins the second round.

Zemmour, a 63-year-old TV pundit-turned-politician, was once tipped to come second behind Macron, back in October. But he plummeted spectacularly in the polls after suffering from a perceived lack of credibility as the Ukraine war started and former comments praising Russian President Vladimir Putin resurfaced. He scored a measly 7 percent. Despite their bitter and unrelenting fighting throughout the campaign, he swiftly endorsed Marine Le Pen.

“I have disagreements with Marine Le Pen,” Zemmour said at his concession speech Sunday, “but there is a man facing Marine Le Pen who has let in 2 million immigrants … who would therefore do worse if he were reelected — it is for this reason that I call on my voters to vote for Marine Le Pen.”