The faith and witness of a young athlete who died running a half marathon

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 17, 2024 / 16:35 pm

After learning the tragic news of the death of Mexican athlete Juan Stenner, 32, during the Mexico City half marathon on July 14, people who knew him recalled his life of faith and passion for sports.

According to World Athletics, the governing body of athletics worldwide, Stenner represented Mexico at the 2011 Guadalajara Pan American Games, competing in the 400-meter hurdles as well as in other international competitions.

In a statement posted on Facebook on the evening of July 14, the Mexico City Sports Institute reported that a man died after fainting near the Angel of Independence, where the finish line of the 21-kilometer (13-mile) race was located.

A year ago, Stenner shared in a podcast his experience at the Pan-American Preparatory School, which has ties to the Opus Dei prelature and where he began his sports career. Later on he obtained a scholarship to study chemical engineering at the University of Southern California, completing his studies at the Ibero-American University in Mexico.

Faith and sports

In 2021, when the young man was preparing for the London Olympic Games, the Opus Dei website posted an article featuring Stenner’s testimony. The athlete was a supernumerary member of the personal prelature and shared how he combined sports and faith in his daily life.

“Sports have helped me get organized: to put God in my day, in sports, in school... It has taught me virtues such as order and perseverance,” he wrote.

Stenner related how, “when you can’t do it anymore, when you’re about to give up,” the best thing to do is to ask God to “give you a hand.” 

“Help me,” he said. “I have two kilometers left and I can’t do it anymore, but help me to do them just as well, to finish well.”

“That makes you better as a person and as an athlete: It brings you closer to God and you finish things well,” he added.

Stenner shared that for him, “Opus Dei is sanctifying the things I do every day.”

“In my case it’s athletics, school, all the activities I do during the day. To sanctify doesn’t mean going to church, getting on your knees and asking God for things. No: It means offering to God what you do during the day and doing it in the best possible way, doing it well,” he explained.

He also highlighted how athletics can be a means to evangelize: “Something that occurs within athletics, and what is curious is that they don’t know God. That’s why it’s a good time to do an apostolate, to be able to talk to them.”

Stenner related that people often asked him about the keys to his success, to which he replied: “It’s because every day I offer to God the things I do, that I do for the love of God, and God gives you a hand.”

‘Passionate about God’

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After his death was announced, Santiago García, rector of Pan-American University, posted a tribute on X in which he remembered Juan as “a great person, a man of faith, a good Christian.”

Alberto de la Barreda, director general of the Pan-American Preparatory School, shared on X that Stenner was “passionate about God and sports; he died doing what he liked most.” 

A Mass for the deposit of the ashes of the deceased athlete was held July 16 at St. Josemaría Escrivá Parish in the Santa Fe neighborhood of Mexico City.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.