He was barely 20 when he did it in Los Angeles in 1984, but he says he is in better condition now, at 60, as he prepares to go to Paris.
The wait between Los Angeles and Paris would be the second longest in Olympic history, according to historians' records.
Martínez is unfazed by the long period between both appointments.
The mark is held by the Japanese equestrian Hiroshi Hoketsu, who participated for the first time in the Tokyo 1964 equestrian event and, at 71 years old, was the oldest athlete to compete in the London 2012 Games.
Martínez, a native of Ciudad Ojeda in the oil-producing state of Zulia, did not initially consider that he would wait four decades to return to an Olympic event. After finishing 41st among 70 competitors in Los Angeles, Martínez had planned to go to the Seoul Games in 1988, but became absorbed by personal and business commitments.
He founded a company manufacturing medical supplies, such as surgical uniforms, and met his future wife, Magaly Chacín. The couple had two children.
But Martínez felt that something was missing in his life. After almost three decades after retiring from the sport, he decided to return to his dream.
“A new spark was lit in my life,” he said in the interview held in a hotel in the capital Caracas.
She returned to competition in 2021 when she qualified for the Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.
He was inspired by another shooter from South America, the Peruvian Francisco Boza — silver medalist in Los Angeles 1984.
Boza, who participated in eight Olympic Games since 1980, seven of them consecutively, helped convince Martínez that age is a state of mind and that fears are what limit people.
At 50 years old and facing young shooters, some half his age, Boza won the gold medal in 2015 at the Pan American Games in Toronto.
After resuming competitions, successes were slow to come for Martínez. But he was not discouraged, he continued to persevere until last year he won the silver medal in the pit modality at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, thereby ensuring his Olympic qualification.
Just one success separated him from the gold medal won by the Guatemalan Jean Pierre Brol, 41 years old.
Why do many people not achieve their dreams, their goals? Because he abandons, because he gives up,” she highlighted. She now knows that her “dream was so big that it required a little more time, that was all it needed.”
“Now I can say objectively, with conviction that each dream has its time and that it requires that you do not abandon, because if you do not abandon there are very high possibilities that you will achieve them. Every time you try, you get closer to that goal,” she stated.
For doctors, clinically, age may have relevance. But for Martínez that is insignificant.
Doctors “have tables, they have standards where they measure the cognitive, visual, physical and mental abilities of a human being, depending on how old they are; That does not correspond to me because currently I can tell you, objectively, I have better averages than when I was 20 years old,” he said.
Martínez was practically born with a sporting weapon in front of his eyes, the product of a family that loved that sport. His father Alonso Martínez also participated in international pit tournaments and was the one who taught him the practice.
Martínez won his first silver medal in the Pan American Games in the pit when the event was held in Caracas 1983, a year before the Los Angeles Olympic Games.
He says that he faced those events “with a lot of uncertainty” and recognizes that the nerves, anxiety and anguish experienced when he was barely 20 years old could have undermined his performance.
Now, on the contrary, he has greater experience “that he did not have back then”, which allows him to “live the same emotion” of being in the Olympic Games, “but in a much calmer, more relaxed, calmer way” .
“These are going to be Games that I am going to enjoy, that I am going to live to the fullest,” he insisted before traveling to Italy at the end of March to continue his preparation.
