{"id":51273,"date":"2025-10-14T10:22:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T14:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/luis-benitez-to-the-hall-of-fame-dominican-taekwondo-legend\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T10:22:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T14:22:55","slug":"luis-benitez-to-the-hall-of-fame-dominican-taekwondo-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/nationals\/luis-benitez-to-the-hall-of-fame-dominican-taekwondo-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"Luis Ben\u00edtez to the Hall of Fame: Dominican Taekwondo Legend"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Luis Ben\u00edtez Enters the Dominican Republic Sports Hall of Fame<\/h2>\n\nThe renowned athlete Luis Ben\u00edtez, Pan American champion and key figure in Dominican taekwondo, will be honored with his induction into the Dominican Sports Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025.\n\nBen\u00edtez, who marked a milestone by being the first Dominican to obtain a gold medal in taekwondo at the Pan American Games, after his victory in Santo Domingo 2003, will join a select group of legends of his discipline.\n\nThis recognition will be shared with Iv\u00e1n Tejeda (2008), Ram\u00f3n Smith (2016) and Gabriel Mercedes (2021), who have been pillars of Dominican taekwondo in the national sports arena.\n\nThe announcement of the selection of the athlete from Santiago, born on December 5, 1981, was made by Dr. Dionisio Guzm\u00e1n, president and spokesperson for the Dominican Sports Hall of Fame.\n\nBen\u00edtez&#8217;s exaltation ceremony will take place during the 59th Exaltation Ceremony, scheduled for Sunday, November 16, 2025, in the auditorium of the Hall of Fame, located in the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center.\n\nThe event will be chaired by businessman Manuel Estrella, who will act as Honorary President of the Ceremony, bringing together prominent figures from national and international sports.\n\nBefore his victory in 2003, Luis Ben\u00edtez had already made history for the country by winning the silver medal at the 1999 Winnipeg Pan American Games, being the first Dominican to achieve a continental podium in taekwondo.\n\nDuring that final, Ben\u00edtez suffered an injury to the cruciate ligament of his right knee, but continued competing against the American Steven L\u00f3pez. His bravery and determination in that fight are remembered as an example of dedication and national pride.\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Class of 2025: Dominican Sports Figures<\/h3>\n\n\nThe Hall of Fame Class of 2025 will also include outstanding athletes from various disciplines, such as:\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Gonzalo Mej\u00eda (tennis) and Beato Miguel Cruz (volleyball), as promoters of the sport.<\/li>\n<li>Baseball players Jos\u00e9 Reyes, Jos\u00e9 Offerman, and Edwin Encarnaci\u00f3n.<\/li>\n<li>Joan Guzm\u00e1n (boxing), Charlie Villanueva (basketball), Francia Jackson (volleyball), Rubel Salom\u00f3n (karate) and Juan Carlos Jacinto (judo).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Luis Ben\u00edtez Enters the Dominican Republic Sports Hall of Fame The renowned athlete Luis Ben\u00edtez, Pan American champion and key figure in Dominican taekwondo, will be honored with his induction into the Dominican Sports Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025. Ben\u00edtez, who marked a milestone by being the first Dominican to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[997],"tags":[7875,7184,9802,9803],"class_list":{"0":"post-51273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nationals","8":"tag-class-of-2025","9":"tag-fame-pavilion","10":"tag-luis-benitez","11":"tag-taekwondo"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}