Montserrath Gauto: Paraguay’s Record-Breaking 400-Metre Star
The story of Montserrath Noemà Gauto Gavilán begins not with years of regimented youth training, not with a family lineage of athletic pedigree, but with a simple invitation from an uncle. In 2022, at 15 years old, she tagged along to watch athletics practice at a track in Asunción. She liked what she saw. The next day, she was competing. Less than a month later, she won a U18 qualifying race and earned a spot at an international meet in Brazil. From that moment, everything changed.
Three years on, Montserrath Gauto holds the Paraguayan national record in the women’s 400 metres, has broken multiple age-group records for her country, has competed across South America, and carries a world ranking inside the top 1,000. She is 19 years old.
Roots in Asunción
Gauto was born on December 29, 2006, in Paraguay — a landlocked country in the heart of South America with a small but proud athletics tradition. Asunción, the capital, is where the sport’s primary infrastructure sits: the athletics track at the SecretarÃa Nacional de Deportes and, crucially, the modern Parque OlÃmpico in the nearby city of Luque, home to the Paraguayan Olympic Committee. The Parque OlÃmpico has become a central venue in Gauto’s competitive career, the track on which she has set multiple national records and represented her country at home.
Her full name, Montserrath Noemà Gauto Gavilán, carries two family surnames as is customary in Paraguay. She is known in the athletics community simply as Montse — a nickname that appears in reports, social media, and federation communications. It suits her: efficient, direct, memorable.
The Beginning: 2022
Gauto has been refreshingly candid about how she came to the sport. In an interview with Paraguay’s La Nación del Finde ahead of the 2025 Junior Pan American Games, she laid out the origin story with characteristic directness: “Empecé a practicar atletismo cuando un tÃo me dijo que le acompañe, fui a mirar y me gustó. Al dÃa siguiente, ya estaba practicando.” She went to watch. She liked it. The next day she was on the track. Within a month, still just 15 years old, she ran a U18 classification race, finished first, and secured a place at an international meet in Brazil. “CorrÃ, quedé primera y empezó todo,” she recalled.
That immediate, instinctive connection between athlete and event is not something that can be manufactured. It was evident from the first race. Gauto took the sport seriously from day one — “siempre tomaba muy en serio para lograr cada objetivo” — and the results reflected that seriousness almost immediately.
Her club affiliation is with Asunción Athletic Club, through which she is registered with the Federación Paraguaya de Atletismo (FPA). Paraguay’s athletics scene is modest in size but earnest in its ambition, and the FPA has invested in development pathways that have increasingly connected promising young athletes to international competition on the South American circuit.
Rise Through the Age Groups: 2022–2023
Gauto’s early competitive profile centred on the 400 metres, the one-lap event that sits at a unique intersection between speed and endurance — an event that rewards athletes who can hold elite sprint mechanics through the bone-deep discomfort of the final hundred metres. It is a technically demanding event, and one that tends to separate those with real talent from those who are merely fast.
She progressed through the Paraguayan junior circuit and began appearing in South American youth competitions. The FPA’s domestic calendar, anchored at venues including the SND track in Asunción and the Parque OlÃmpico in Luque, gave her regular competitive opportunities. By the time she had been running for less than two years, she had already established herself as one of the strongest young 400m runners in the country and was earning selection for international representative events.
In May 2024, competing at the Pista de Atletismo da Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso in Cuiabá, Brazil — part of the Trofeo Adhemar Ferreira Da Silva — she ran as a member of Paraguay’s mixed 4×400 metres relay team. The quartet posted 3:34.79, a new Paraguayan national record for the mixed relay. It was her first national record, and the first indication of just how valuable her quarter-lap legs could be for the national team’s relay programme.
Breaking Through at Senior Level: 2024
The 2024 season marked Gauto’s transition from promising youth athlete to a genuine presence on the senior Paraguayan squad. She was honoured at the Federación Paraguaya de Atletismo’s annual Gala 2024, held at the Consejo Nacional de Deportes in Asunción, as part of the national relay squads recognised for their international achievements that year. The relay team members — including Jhumiler Sánchez, Paul Wood, Marcos González, Araceli MartÃnez, and Xenia Hiebert alongside Gauto — were among the atletas que lograron medallas internacionales y rompieron récords nacionales celebrated that evening.
On November 1, 2024, she ran her personal best in the 4×100 metres relay — 47.75 seconds — at the Parque OlÃmpico in Luque. A few weeks later, on November 24, she ran 25.43 in the 200 metres at the same venue. Both marks confirmed that her base speed was developing in parallel with her specialist 400m work, a crucial combination for any athlete with ambitions at the international level.
Her World Athletics ranking for the women’s 400 metres began to climb into meaningful territory, landing inside the top 1,000 globally — a real achievement for a 17-year-old from a country with limited athletics infrastructure by global standards.
A Year of Records: 2025
If 2024 was the season Gauto arrived, 2025 was the season she took off — literally and figuratively. The year produced a relentless cascade of personal bests and national records, each one more impressive than the last.
In early April 2025, at the fourth edition of the Open Tournament at the SND track in Asunción, she won the 400 metres with a time of 57.67 seconds — a new national record, shaving a hundredth off her previous mark of 57.68. The performance was reported by ABC Color, Paraguay’s leading newspaper, under the headline “Montserrath Gauto vuela sobre la pista” — Gauto flies over the track.
But the real breakthrough came at the end of April, at the Campeonato Sudamericano de Atletismo (South American Senior Athletics Championships) in Mar del Plata, Argentina, where she was 18 years old. In a single race, she obliterated not one but two Paraguayan national records simultaneously: her own U20 mark of 57.68 seconds and the existing U23 national record of 56.85 set by Fátima Amarilla. Her time: 56.68. The reporting by RDN Paraguay put it plainly — “La atleta de apenas 18 años estableció un nuevo récord nacional en los 400 metros llanos para las categorÃas U20 y U23.” It was a leap of more than a second from her previous best, the kind of improvement that signals an athlete who has crossed a threshold into a new level of readiness.
Her preparation for that breakthrough had been extensive. In the months leading up to the 2025 season, she spent a month training in Portugal and then another month in Ecuador, working double sessions every day. “A veces, no daba más, pero igual seguÃa,” she told La Nación del Finde. Sometimes she could not take any more — but she kept going anyway. That discipline is evident in the times.
On July 9, 2025, came the capstone of her year to that point. At the Campeonato Sudamericano U20 — the South American Under-20 Athletics Championships held at La Vicentina in Quito, Ecuador — she ran 55.50 seconds in the 400 metres. It was, once again, a new Paraguayan national record across the board, and it stands as her current personal best. The World Athletics score for that performance: 995 points — firmly in the range of an athlete capable of making finals at continental youth championships. Her World Athletics ranking reached #913 in the women’s 400m.
Then, on August 22, 2025, back at the Parque OlÃmpico in Luque, she was part of the Paraguayan women’s 4×400 metres relay team that ran 3:56.32 — yet another national record in the relay. It was the second NR of the calendar year.
The Junior Pan American Games: Paraguay’s Biggest Stage
The 2025 Junior Pan American Games were held in Asunción itself — the first time Paraguay had hosted either the senior or junior Pan American Games — making the event a moment of particular national pride and intensity. Gauto was selected to compete in the 400 metres individual, the mixed 4×400 metres relay, and the 4×100 metres relay, a triple assignment that reflected the trust the federation had placed in her after her record-breaking 2025 campaign.
She spoke openly ahead of the Games about the emotional weight of the moment. “Es importante, estoy muy emocionada por representar a mi paÃs en una competencia tan grande como Los Juegos Panamericanos Júnior Asu 2025, ya que trabajé muy duro. El objetivo era clasificar, gracias a Dios lo logré.” The goal had been to qualify. She had achieved that. Now, competing on home soil, in front of Paraguayan fans, with Asunción wearing its athletic heart on its sleeve, the stakes were different.
In the 400 metres, she ran in the semifinals on August 19, advancing from her heat. In competition, she beat out rival athletes including Panama’s competitor to secure her result, finishing ahead of the Panamanian runner who clocked 57.67 seconds behind her. Her performances in the multi-event format over the course of the Games demonstrated exactly the versatility and competitive toughness that had come to define her season.
The Games themselves were a historic success for Paraguay, with the host nation finishing with 23 medals — three gold, six silver, and fourteen bronze. Gauto was part of a national athletic effort that the whole country celebrated.
South American U20 Championships, Lima: Late 2025
With her 55.50 personal best in hand and a World Athletics score of 995 — the highest-rated mark among the Paraguayan athletes selected — Gauto travelled to Lima, Peru in late October and early November 2025 for the South American U20 Championships in Athletics. She was Paraguay’s top-ranked entry in her event, heading into the championships as a legitimate contender at a tournament that draws the best junior athletics talent on the continent.
The competition in Lima featured athletes from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and across the region, in what World Athletics described as one of the continent’s premier development competitions. Her inclusion as Paraguay’s standard-bearer in the 400m reflected how far she had come since that first afternoon at a track three years earlier.
Training Philosophy and Personal Values
Gauto’s approach to training is built around discipline and full commitment. Her preparation includes extensive gymnasium work — resistance training, long and short repetitions, and what she describes as “mucha explosividad” — explosive work that underpins her power through the back straight and the final bend of the 400. She trains under the FPA’s national programme, which has included coordination with coaches at domestic meets and periodic international training stints.
The trips to Portugal and Ecuador in early 2025 — totalling around two months of concentrated preparation ahead of her breakthrough season — reflect the seriousness with which she and her support team approached the year. Double sessions in Ecuador, where she prepared for the altitude-adjusted conditions she would eventually race in at Quito, proved to be a direct investment that paid off in the 55.50 national record on that track.
Her motivational outlook is rooted in faith and ambition in equal measure. “Mi sueño es ser atleta olÃmpica, demostrar dónde puedo llegar y no pararé hasta conseguirlo,” she has said. Her Olympic ambition is not vague aspiration — it is an active organizing principle of everything she does on the track and in the weights room. She has framed her career in terms of consistent commitment: “La pasión por el deporte es fundamental para perseverar y se siente muy bien. Es esencial mantener una rutina rigurosa, cumplir horarios estrictos y seguir un plan de entrenamiento detallado.”
Sponsorship and Support
As of mid-2025, Gauto’s only official sponsor is New Balance, with whom she is affiliated through the NBYouthRunners programme. Her Instagram bio lists her as “ATLETA DE @newbalance” and “ATLETA DE #NBYouthRunners,” placing her within New Balance’s youth athletics development pipeline. She has been candid about wanting additional support — mentioning in the La Nación del Finde interview the need for hydration support from companies like Powerade as she manages the physical demands of double-session training and international travel. “Necesito más apoyo,” she said plainly. It is a reality many athletes in smaller athletics nations face: the talent is there long before the commercial backing catches up to it.
Social Media
Gauto maintains a presence on Instagram at @montserrath_gauto, where she shares updates from competition, training, and her life as one of Paraguay’s most exciting young athletes. Her club, Asunción Athletic Club, is also tagged in her bio, alongside her New Balance affiliation and a characteristically Paraguayan expression of faith: “Si Dios está conmigo quien contra mi” — if God is with me, who is against me.
Personal Bests and Records
- 400 metres: 55.50 NR — July 9, 2025, Quito, Ecuador (South American U20 Championships)
- 200 metres: 25.43 — November 24, 2024, Luque, Paraguay
- 4×100 metres relay: 47.75 NR — November 1, 2024, Luque, Paraguay
- 4×400 metres relay (mixed): 3:34.79 NR — May 10, 2024, Cuiabá, Brazil
- 4×400 metres relay (women): 3:56.32 NR — August 22, 2025, Luque, Paraguay
All four relay marks represent Paraguayan national records, as does her individual 400m time. She holds the Paraguayan national record across U20, U23, and open categories in the 400 metres.
What Comes Next
Gauto’s trajectory is one of the more striking in South American junior athletics right now. She began running in 2022 and had broken the national record in her primary event three years later. She entered her first international seniors championship and immediately ran faster than any Paraguayan woman — U20, U23, or open — had ever run the 400m in the U23 age group. She did this while still 18 years old.
The next milestones are clear. Sub-55 seconds in the open 400 metres would place her among the genuine contenders at the South American Championships at the senior level. Consistent finals appearances at South American U20 and U23 championships would build the profile needed for eventual World Championship qualification windows. And the Olympic Games — Lima 2027 for the Pan Americans if she continues to develop, Los Angeles 2028 for the Olympics — are, as she has said, the ultimate target.
Paraguay is not a country that regularly produces elite 400m runners. But every now and then, talent emerges from unexpected places, catalysed by a chance moment — an uncle’s invitation, an afternoon at a track, a first race that sets everything in motion. Montserrath Gauto is that kind of story, and it is very much still being written.
Montserrath Noemà Gauto Gavilán (born December 29, 2006) competes for Paraguay in the 400 metres and relay events. She is registered with World Athletics (athlete code 15045395) and is affiliated with Asunción Athletic Club. She is sponsored by New Balance through the NBYouthRunners programme. Follow her on Instagram: @montserrath_gauto.
