From a childhood diagnosis to stardom: Esteban Silva's story | OneFootball

Sport had always been part of Esteban Silva’s life. During his childhood, he tried tennis, taekwondo, and basketball, a sport he played passionately at a club in Plottier, Neuquén. However, at age 12, the unexpected onset of a health condition drastically changed his sporting future during a game. Today, he is competing in the 13th South American Games Santa Fe 2026 representing the country.

“We were playing a game and all of a sudden during that game I felt chest pain, my vision got blurry, and my throat closed up. I went outside with my parents and they took me to the doctor,” the national athlete told Rosario3 about that turning point. The first routine evaluations did not provide any certainty, so the doctors decided to dig deeper: “The doctor couldn’t find anything on an electrocardiogram, so they decided to give me a stress test right away, and that’s when they could see that when I ran, my heart wasn’t working properly. It was like I was having a kind of ischemia, like an arrhythmia”.

Given the complexity of the case, doctors in Neuquén referred him to Buenos Aires for highly precise testing. “I had a gamma camera scan and a CT scan, which showed that I have a myocardial bridge in the left anterior descending artery that causes, when my heart beats very fast—which normally happens when I’m running or doing very intense activities—, the artery to get compressed, and that causes a lack of blood flow to the tip of my heart and therefore causes ischemia. In the long term, that can lead to a possible heart attack, since the blood flow gets cut off, stops flowing as it should, and the tip of the heart starts to die,” Silva explained in detail about the condition that threatened his health.

The medical diagnosis also brought a severe restriction and the end of all aerobic or high-intensity physical activity: “They made me stop all the physical activity I was doing. That’s why I had to quit basketball; I couldn’t play it again, and I couldn’t do physical education either.”

Instead of moving away from sports, the medical recommendation opened a small door toward low-impact disciplines. “They gave me other options. The cardiologist treating me said I could try archery, golf, or horseback riding, but that I had to do something calm. There happened to be a club operating in the gym of a secondary school in Plottier. I think it was a Saturday when I went—it was three blocks away—so I went to try it. I liked it and got hooked,” he recalled about his first steps in 2019, at just 13 years old.

Although the arrival of the pandemic forced a widespread pause that kept him away from the targets, in 2022 he returned to active practice with renewed commitment. “I kept progressing through tournaments and took part in the Integrated Patagonian Games. That was what pushed me to keep growing because I managed to win a silver medal and a gold medal. I started working more seriously, and then national team coaches came to hold something like training camps. They saw potential in me and told me to keep training”, the athlete said.

Determined to maximize his performance, he took a key step in his development: “I switched to a club in Neuquén, where they had a coach with more technical knowledge who could help me reach a higher level. I started working with him, improving my distances, and shooting farther and farther.”

That progress soon translated into concrete achievements on a national and international scale. “In 2023, I competed in my first Under-18 National Final and became national champion in that category. Since then, I’ve been part of the Argentine national team, competing in international tournaments and carrying the Argentine jersey everywhere,” he says.

That journey included a landmark achievement when he won a Junior Pan American medal in Asunción 2025. Today, competing in the South American Games Santa Fe 2026, Esteban Silva shows how the resilience and focus required in archery allowed him to turn a harsh limitation into a path of self-improvement.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.