Cielo Veizaga

Cielo Veizaga was born on 17 March 2001 in Cochabamba to Víctor Veizaga, a goalkeeper from the city, and Roxana Arteaga, a track and field athlete from Santa Cruz.[3] Due to her mother's background, her family lived in a poor neighborhood in Montero, Santa Cruz where from the age of 10 she began playing "pata pila", a name for football played barefoot due to the area's poverty. When she was 11, her mother was murdered, with Veizaga claiming that she was "singled out, just for thinking differently", though she did not elaborate further.[4] After that, she continued to pursue a football career with her father as her personal trainer, stating that "I learned to turn pain into strength, talent and love".[5]

In 2015, Veizaga and her family moved to Ivirgarzama in the Cochabamba tropics where she trained continually until joining the San Antonio de Padua school team. She gained national recognition as a champion of several Plurinational Student Games and was offered positions among the ranks of Wilstermann, Bolívar, and Mundo Futuro, a component club of Oriente Petrolero, but rejected them in favor of continuing her high school studies. Though not a member of any clubs, in 2015 she was selected to join the women's national under-20 team. Just 14 years-old at the time, she was brought on to gain experience since she was too young to qualify for the team's payroll.[6]

In 2019, U20 manager Napoleón Cardozo called her to participate in four FIFA friendlies against Puerto Rico in Santa Cruz and Peru in Lima. In August of the same year, she was selected to be captain of the U19 team in the Cotif friendly tournament, which played at L'Alcúdia, Spain. Her performance caught the attention of Valencia CF which invited her for a one week tryout, though scheduling problems prevented her from participating.[4] At the end of the year, she graduated with a bachelor in humanities from the San Antonio de Padua school.[7]

On 17 December 2020, Minister of Health Édgar Pozo appointed Veizaga to the post of vice minister of sports. Aged 19 at the time, she is the youngest minister within the Cabinet of Luis Arce.[8] At her swearing-in, Pozo highlighted Veizaga's appointment as "fulfilling a debt that is owed to the youth".[9] For her part, Veizaga promised to continue "the achievements of 14 years of the government of the Movement for Socialism" and pointed towards the sports portfolio as the best way to unify the country.[10] Veizaga's appointment was not universally acclaimed, however, with some social sectors including the College of Physical Education and Sports Teachers of Cochabamba critcizing her lack of experience and lack of "specialized professional training in the sports area".[11] She responded by stating that she "come from the fields, what more experience is there than that?" and asked that critics "give the youth the opportunity" and "let them show their work".[12][13]

During her term, Veizaga critcized the previous transitional administration for having "left us dismantled". The government of Jeanine Áñez in 2020 demoted the Ministry of Sports to a vice ministry, which the vice minister credited as causing budget issues. She also pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic as a cause for the slow reactivation of many sports projects but stated that "we are making the arrangements. We have held meetings with different institutions and athletes to find out their needs and how to help".[14]

Veizaga faced criticism of her own when on 19 April 2021 a group of current and former employees of the vice ministry of sports lodged a complaint against the vice minister and demanded her resignation on allegations of poor management and abuse. They alleged that they had been "forced" to work for almost three months without pay and had been charged monthly fees.[15][16] It was also claimed that Vanessa Veizaga, Cielo's sister, had been allowed to make administrative decisions; "she is the one that handles everything there".[17]

On 8 September 2021, Veizaga announced the launch of the Competitive Sports Development Program (Prodecom), with the purpose of providing sustained support for high-performance and promising athletes. The program promises to grant national and international air tickets and manage visas for athlete travel as well as provide sportswear among other aspects.[18]