In the world famous Paris 2024 Olympic Gamesthe colombian lifter Mari Sanchez wore socks One piece and its protagonist Monkey D. Luffy. A strong woman who surprised everyone by winning the silver medal by lifting 112 kilos in the clean and jerk classification. The power of anime does it back to the Olympic Games and its competitors.

Weightlifting athlete Mari Sánchez confesses to being a One Piece fan after winning the silver medal

At these 2024 Olympic Games we have seen everything, from its start on the Seine River, to the many controversies involved. But now something more motivating and interesting has happened, as in the women's weightlifting category, in the Clean & Clean lifting section, the Colombian Mari Sanchez triumphed. Not only would she take home a silver medal, her country's third to date, but she would also be positively noticed for wearing cute socks. One piece starring the good Luffy.

Mari Sánchez is a Colombian who lifted 145 in snatch mode and 112 in clean and jerk mode, thus giving her a silver medal that many did not expect. But what also caught the public's attention were the Luffy socks, to which the Colombian mentioned: “I'm a bit of a fan of his, I think I learned something from him, fighting for that goal, for that dream, who wants to be the king of the pirates, so I was very attached to that”, said the athlete.

In what was told, Mari revealed that he identifies with the character Luffy, who seeks to become the king of the pirates, as well as pursuing his dream in weightlifting. He was not the only one at the Olympic Games to make reference to anime or movie characters. One piece. An example of this is Payton Otterdahlwho in his registration for the shot put competition made Luffy's entrance in his Gear 4, being portrayed in an epic way. Something similar happened with the franchise Nier: Automata within the artistic swimming competition, something we delve into in this note on our page.

Yeison Lopez and its references dragon ballLorenzo Simonelli and his reference also to One piece in athletics, or Noah Lyles himself with references to Goku and Jujutsu KaisenAnime was very present in these 2024 Olympic Games. Also standing out were the competitors for the 10-meter air pistol shooting medal, mixed teams, who starred in moments worthy of a Jojo's Bizarre Adventure panel. If you want to see more incredible performances from these talented athletes, you can go directly to the Olympic Games account from this link.

The appearances of athletes referencing anime have increased over the years due to their popularity. As we know, many of these series have a personal development that can motivate these high-performance athletes from a young age and thus make them express their love for them. It is a pleasure to see how this increases and becomes increasingly viral on social networks. Let's hope this continues and that one day in the future our favorite animes will be a reason for progress for thousands of athletes around the world.