Tulare celebrates hometown Olympic hero Richard Torrez Jr.
A hero’s welcome, red carpet treatment, motorcade, ceremony, it was a time to rejoice and celebrate with the festivities as the community showed the love and support for Tulare’s own Olympic silver medalist Richard Torrez Jr.
The Olympian not only got the welcome home celebration he deserved, but Mayor Dennis Mederos also proclaimed Aug. 21, 2021, as Richard ‘Kiki’ Torrez Jr. Day in Tulare.
Early in the day the city’s chamber of commerce CEO Donnette Silva Carter also announced a mural project in honor of the 22-year-old boxer, unveiling a rendering of the mural which is slated to be completed in November on the chamber’s building wall next to the murals of Olympians Bob Mathias and Sim Iness. As a child, Torrez Jr. dreamed of being up on that wall with those two community icons.
“As soon as I got home and I saw the amount of support and appreciation that my town, communities gave me. It’s been unbelievable. It has been like a dream come true,” said Torrez Jr., whose Olympic medal in the super heavyweight boxing division was one of the 113 medals won by USA Olympic athletes competing at the 2020 Tokyo games.
His medal was one of the 41 silver medals that the U.S. took home along with 39 gold and 33 bronze medals.
“I was shaped and molded by my family, by my community in my town,” Torrez Jr. said. “And so, Tulare, not just me, was in that ring. And we won that medal together.”
Crowds on the streets as well at the Bob Mathias Stadium waited for Olympian’s motorcade which traveled from the Tulare Athletic Boxing Club,where Torrez Jr. had trained all his life, to the stadium.
To be recognized with legends like Mathias and Iness, Torrez Jr. said “they are the people that I looked up to when I was training and I knew that it was possible, you know, and it was possible to go to the Olympics. And, you know, I hope I could do that to someone one day as well.
“I hope I could shine the same light that Bob Mathias shone on me, and that Sim Iness shone on me because, since Day 1, I knew that Olympians were possible in Tulare and I hope that, you know, the next one up is the gold,” said Torrez Jr., who stepped out of the Tulare Police SWAT armored vehicle followed by his parents and sister, Maggie, as he walked into the stadium through an inflatable tunnel as the public and cheerleaders from all three Tulare high school chanted “USA!”
The ceremony at the stadium included Torrez Jr. walking with an American flag, waving to people at the stands, lighting the Olympic flame replica with a torch handed to him by his father Richard Torrez Sr., recognition, and presentations of resolutions from community leaders and dignitaries as well as signing of autographs and posing for photos with those in attendance.
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“This has just been an incredible adventure and really wouldn’t have been possible without our community and the people in it. So, just a huge thank you to everyone in our community that has come out and supported him a 100 percent of the way,” Kim Torrez said.
“I’m overjoyed. It’s wonderful, you know, to see hard work recognized. It’s always great,” said Torrez Sr. Of his son being recognized. “So, to know that people acknowledge that he has put in so much work, that he has sacrificed so much to be there, you know, I am overjoyed with that.”
Torrez Sr. said he did not want to be shedding tears as he and his wife unveiled the rendering of the mural to honor his son, but confess that “yeah, it almost came.”
His wife Kim did get tearful at that moment.
The Olympic medalist said he would not change for the world his experience at the 2020 Olympics as he plans “on making my professional debut soon.”
“With that being said, I would like to stay in the Valley, and I would like to promote the Valley,” he said. “You guys have been so supportive to me. I really want to give back to people. I just want to say to everybody, stay tuned, because, you know, big things are going to continue to come.”
Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 24 de agosto de 2021, 7:07 p. m..
