Orlando Guaita 1978
Between 1977 and 1989,Nancy Vallecilla Celi, who studied in the Federal Republic of Germany, was one of Ecuador’s well-known athletes. Her career as an international athlete began in the late 1970s. At the Bolivarian Games in La Paz (Bolivia), in October, 1977, she beat Peru’s Edith Noeding -Pan American champion- and won the medal gold in the women’s long jump. Apart from that, Vallecilla placed second in the 100m hurdles, winning a silver medal for Ecuador. The following year, she captured the gold medal in the women’s long jump, with a record of 5.80m, in the Orlando Guaita Tournament, a prestigious event in Santiago de Chile. Following her victory in Chile, she, together with Luis Tipan, competed in the 8th Pan American Games in Puerto Rico in 1979.
Puerto Rico 1979
At the VIII Games, Miss Vallecilla finished fifth in the pentathlon (3,818 points) and seventh in the 100m hurdles (14.23 seconds). The San Juan de Puerto Rico Pan American Games had been her second major international competition. But she also had difficult moments. Due to economical problems, by 1979, Ecuador did not participate in the South American Championships in Bucaramanga (Colombia) and Vallecilla lost the chance to win international medals. Like her countryman Tipan (5,000m -10,000m), she had been favorite to win medals (long jump, 100m hurdles, and pentathlon). At that time, the Ecuadoran government made little contribution to promote the Olympic Movement in the nation. As a result, several athletes could not compete in the international tournaments. By the early 70s, the military government, for example, declined to send an Olympic contingent to the Bolivarian Games.
Moscow 1980
By 1980, Vallecilla had been chosen to represent Ecuador to the Summer Olympic Games in the Soviet Union. In that year, the Moscow Olympics were boycotted by a host of nations and dependencies. However, the Ecuadoran rule, unlike Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, had not supported the boycott, which had been led by America’s then-President Jimmy (James Earl) Carter (1977-1981). On the other hand, several Latin American delegations, among them Ecuador, had been subsidized by the Soviet government.
At the XXII Olympiad, Vallecilla, unfortunately, was forced to drop out of the pentathlon because of an injury. But that was certainly not the end of Vallecilla’s amateur career. The following year, at the South American Championships in Bolivia, she won silver medals in the 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles. By the end of the year Vallecilla was voted the country’s outstanding athlete (male or female).
Indianapolis 1987
In 1985, she came in second place in the heptathlon in the South American Tournament in Chile. Her figures for the event were as follows: 25.17 seconds in the 200-meter race; a 100-meter-hurdle time of 13.72 seconds; a long jump of 5.97 m; a javelin thrust of 33.88 meters; a high jump of 1,66m; and two minutes 23.53 seconds in the 800-meter race.
It was during the mid-1980s that she set many national records. On May 11, 1985, in Mainz (Germany), she established a new Ecuadoran mark of 1,82 m in the high jump. Then, on May 26, she established a record of 5,925 points in heptathlon. During the years that followed, Vallecilla, an Afro-Ecuadoran athlete, came in 28th place in the women’s 100m hurdles (13.98s) at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Asia. Prior to 1988, she had been a finalist in the Pan American Games in Indianapolis (Indiana,U.S). During that year, she set a new South American mark of 13.16 in the 100m hurdles. Vallecilla was born on November 24, 1957, in Portoviejo, Ecuador.
