One week following his stunning victory at the 2024 Pokémon TCG World Championships in Honolulu, Chilean Fernando Cifuentes was invited to La Moneda—the presidential residence of Chile—by Chilean President Gabriel Boric. To date, Cifuentes is the first person to ever be invited to meet a national head of government in recognition of a TCG-related achievement.

The invite came after several days of clamor on the part of Chilean netizens. Countless social media posts were made calling on President Boric to invite Cifuentes to La Moneda in the wake of his triumph; many even tagged the President’s official Twitter account when doing so. All of this came to fruition on 29 August 2024, the day when Cifuentes (as well as nine other Chilean players who made it to Day 2 of Worlds) finally set foot inside La Moneda.

In addition to President Boric, other official figures present for Cifuentes’ visit included Ministry General Secretariat of Government Camila Vallejo, Minister of Foreign Affairs Alberto van Klaveren, and Ambassador of Japan to Chile Takako Ito.

In honor of Cifuentes’ victory, President Boric presented Cifuentes with a custom-made, one-of-one Pokémon TCG card. The card, named “Fernando and Iron Thorns”, was in Spanish and bore flavor text paying tribute to Cifuentes’ status as the first Chilean to ever win a Pokémon World Championship of any sort—whether TCG, Video Game Championship (VGC), or Pokémon UNITE. The card referenced Iron Thorns ex, the card from Crimson Haze [SV5a] which served as the centerpiece of Cifuentes’ title-winning deck. The President also made a congratulatory post on his Instagram account.

President Boric, who represents the Broad Front party, has been President of Chile since March 2022. He is known to be an ardent Pokémon fan; ahead of his inauguration, Japanese State Minister of Foreign Affairs Kiyoshi Odawara presented Boric with a plushie of Squirtle—the President’s favorite Pokémon.

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