Ángel Barajas made history at the Paris Olympics. At 17 he won horizontal bar silver, the first Olympic medal for a Colombian gymnast. He tied Shinnosuke Oka on score and lost the title only on the execution tie-break.
Junior promise
Barajas was already a standout junior. At the 2023 Junior World Championships he won all-around silver plus gold on floor and parallel bars. He moved to senior level in time for Paris and reached the horizontal bar final in his first Olympic Games.
Building an all-around
Since Paris, Barajas has turned himself into a serious all-arounder. At the 2025 World Championships in Jakarta he finished sixth in the all-around, Colombia's best result, beating the tenth place of his assistant coach Jossimar Calvo in 2014. He was also fourth on parallel bars.
In 2026 he won the overall World Cup series on parallel bars, won the all-around at the Central American and Caribbean Games, and took horizontal bar gold and all-around silver at the Pan American Championships in Rio.
Rotterdam 2026
Barajas and Camilo Vera lifted Colombia into the top six of the provisional team ranking on the first day of men's qualification. Individually, Barajas was eighth in the all-around after four of six subdivisions, on 82.831. A place in the team final would be a first for Colombia. Barajas himself is a contender for the all-around final and for medals on horizontal bar and parallel bars.
