12-Year-Old Isla Mujeres Speed Skater Wins Five Golds at CONADE National Olympiad

Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo — Yessica Jocabed Koh Pastrana, a 12-year-old speed skater from Isla Mujeres, has won five gold medals at a CONADE National Olympiad, a haul that makes her the top competitor in the country in her age category.

The young athlete discovered her passion for the sport through speed skating, and her coaches and family credit her discipline and perseverance for the results. Her next goal is a place on the Mexican national team.

Koh Pastrana trains in Playa del Carmen, where she travels regularly to work out. She said the sport first caught her attention as a small child at home.

“Since I was very little, skates always caught my attention, so I started at home with a pair of toy skates, and it was something I kept asking my mom and my dad for,” she said. “That’s how we started traveling to Playa del Carmen to train, and that’s how I got into this sport.”

She added that her early success came quickly once she began competing.

“I like skating, I really enjoy it, and that’s what led me to start competing within a short time,” she said. “In my first competition, with very little experience, I won a bronze medal, and that was because I fell during the race and lost positions. From then on I said: this is my sport.”

Now one of the standout figures in a discipline where Quintana Roo has become a national power, Koh Pastrana won five gold medals at the 2026 edition of the CONADE National Olympiad, Mexico’s premier youth sports competition. She was 6 years old when she first stepped onto skates.

“I started skating when I was 6, and today I feel proud of what I’ve achieved,” she said. “I think that 6-year-old girl would be amazed at what she’s done, because I never thought I’d get to where I am. In my first National Olympiad I didn’t win any medals, and a year later I won five, and all of them were gold.”

Speaking with Jacobo Arzate Hop, head of the Quintana Roo Sports Commission (CODEQ), Koh Pastrana also recalled the medals she holds dearest: the one from her first national qualifying event and a silver at the Interassociations Championship.

“Without a doubt, it’s the one I won at my first National Qualifier, because it was my first experience at a big competition, and a silver I won at the Interassociations Championship,” she said.

CODEQ, which operates under the state government’s Nuevo Acuerdo por el Bienestar y Desarrollo program led by Governor Mara Lezama Espinosa, said it maintains close contact with athletes across Quintana Roo.