Bad Day for Jefferson at Cixi, China 
ECUADOR, 11/05/2005. It was a rainy dawn in the small and cheerful city of Cixi, China, with a temperature of 10 degrees Celsius when the race began. The first two kilometers were very fast, timed at 7 min. 35 sec. As the race wore on the Chinese and Australian athletes began to forge ahead. At 10K the time of the leaders was 39:00, while Jefferson's time was 40:10. At that point stomach pains began to affect our representative, who began to drop off the pace imposed by the leaders to that point. At 12K Jeff had to stop due to stomach pains that were becoming sharper, and which caused him to vomit several times, losing not only seconds, but valuable minutes, leaving him farther and farther behind the leaders.
At 15K he was no longer in condition to continue; nevertheless, with nobility and honor, he continued, until reaching the finish when the implacable chronometer registered 1h:29m:30s, a time that all noticed and that Jeff himself couldn't believe. At that moment place wasn't important, since the time had done its work.
The winner of the event was the Australian, Nathan Deakes, in a time of 1hr:17m:43s, just 13 seconds from breaking the world record achieved by the Ecuadorian in 2003 at Paris, France. Second and third place went to Chinese athletes, who registered a time under 1h:18m. Fourth and fifth places were also occupied by Chinese athletes.
The high level of this competition was impressive, producing the best times so far this year without a doubt. Jeff advanced his return to Sunday the 24th of April, arriving at 11:50 p.m. in Guayaquil. In the early hours of the morning he departed for his native city of Cuenca. Now he will begin to evaluate this competition and search for correctives in order to achieve a better competitive level in the coming events.
His next competition will be at La Coruña, Spain, the 4th of June, although it is still possible that he will travel to Lima, Peru, next month for the Pan American Race Walking Cup.
With respect to the situation of the country, from which he cannot separate himself, considering his high degree of representatively and identity, he wished to make the following statement:
"I am very worried about what has occurred in Ecuador in these last eight days. I have thought a lot about the political problems of the country, since on the one hand there are Ecuadorians around the world who try to represent our nation, while others do nothing more that fight among countrymen, manipulated by certain imperialistic and authoritarian chiefs, who have done nothing more that take control of our nation and manage it according to their selfish interests during these 25 years of so-called democracy, which have served to pack a few with political and economic power to the disadvantage of the majority of Ecuadorians. Some even express patriotic phrases, without even knowing what it means to be patriotic, trying to confuse us in the most absurd way. Do they really believe we aren't capable of distinguishing between good and bad? Only time and future generations will judge their actions. Meanwhile, the great majority of us have to work day in and day out to provide our children and young people with a better Ecuador. Finally, I wish to exhort the people to join together in work, study and the country's progress. ECUADOR WITHOUT THE RIGHT TO GIVE UP."
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