"We received it and we will try to take to the field", replied the Secretary of State for Sport, Pedro Dias, referring to the challenge issued by Marta Onofre during the presentation of the book and opening of the exhibition 'Olympic Doctor Athletes', at the headquarters of the Order of Physicians, in Lisbon. Shortly before, the athlete who represented Portugal in pole vaulting in Rio2016 had revealed that, after returning from Brazil, she had met, in the company of fellow Olympians Rui Bragança and Ana Rente, with officials from the Ministry of Health to address the possibility of giving high-level athletes more time to complete their specialty, without having had a subsequent response. After hearing the national pole vaulting record holder say that she hopes that in the future other athletes will have an easier task in reconciling a high-level career with medicine, Pedro Dias recalled that there is currently a pilot project for "extending the program" of the high-performance support units in the school. "We certainly have to strengthen it, but it was recently extended to Higher Education. We will need your support, namely from the Order of Physicians, in implementing this pilot, because we know that we have a significant number of student-athletes in medicine, who have had many difficulties in this reconciliation every year", he declared, promising that the Government will do everything to ensure that this pilot project "is a success" and that it is implemented "in the following year in all Higher Education institutions". The Secretary of State for Sport praised "the excellence" of the work "as doctors and athletes" of those who were immortalized in the book, which brings together the story of 18 Olympians with a career in medicine. Before, the 'protagonists' of the work had spoken, with Rui Bragança being the first to take the floor, to guarantee that "if it weren't for taekwondo, I wouldn't be a doctor". "Those who were Olympians have a different way of seeing things and I hope to live up to it, bringing the learnings of 20 years of taekwondo to medicine", he confessed, in a counterpoint with Francisco Belo, who hopes to become "as good a doctor" as he is a shot putter. In addition to the recently crowned Ibero-American champion, who was in Tokyo2020, Marta Onofre also spoke of the 'legacy' of "16 years of reconciling a dual career". "These last 16 years have been years of hard work, a lot of pain and a lot of frustration, which despite everything are more constant than the moments when we feel fulfilled. Those years allowed me to be the person I am today", she said, assuming that reconciling medicine and motherhood "with a high-performance career is pure madness". The presentation was also attended by the former president of the Order of Physicians and Olympic shooter António Gentil Martins, Jacques Pena (shooting), Joaquim Ramada (sailing) and the president of the Portuguese Sailing Federation, Mário Quina, representing his father and the only doctor who won an Olympic medal: the sailor Mário Gentil Quina, silver in Rome1960. "All the examples we have in this book are more than just successful examples", defended, for his part, José Costa, secretary-general of the Olympic Athletes Commission, also highlighting the fact that these 18 cases are an example of someone who "had the capacity to combine two worlds that often do not touch each other and are difficult to coexist". "In addition to the complexity that a dual career entails, medicine has another particularity: it allows Olympic athletes to enhance the Olympic values and the humanity they acquire as athletes", he highlighted. After Artur Lopes, vice-president of the Portuguese Olympic Committee, also urged the Government to look at the issue of dual careers so that these athlete-doctors can be given "a life that allows them to connect one passion to another", the president of the Order of Physicians, Carlos Cortes, also defended that it is necessary to "do something" and "develop a joint path" to help these athletes.