Alberto Domínguez

Alberto Domínguez (12 July 1934 – 11 September 2001), known as El Pocho, competing for Club Ciclista América and later for Club Unión Ciclista, winning a national tournament in Uruguay in 1953 with Club Unión. He later represented Uruguay at the 1956 Summer Olympics as part of a team along Alberto Velázquez and Rodolfo Rodino.

11 September attacks

Some weeks before the September 11 attacks, Domínguez and his wife Marta had travelled to the United States to spend time with Marta's sister, who was recovering from a recent surgery.

Flight 11 was the first of the four planes to be hijacked that morning. The assailants, who had stabbed passengers and flight attendants, including Israeli-American passenger Daniel Lewin, deliberately flew the plane into the 1 World Trade Center of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. (EDT), killing everyone on board.

Virginia, Domínguez's daughter, was at her home in Lidcombe, New South Wales, and had just returned from a movie theatre. Domínguez's remains were found on top of a building on Liberty Street, in south Manhattan. Noellia Scarone, Domínguez's granddaughter, said that every year on 11 September she felt overwhelmed by remembering how her grandfather died, stating that Domínguez was a strong male figure in her life after her father divorced her mother (Virginia) and moved to Spain.

While taking part in the events of the 10th anniversary in 2011, Virginia expressed gratitude for the accompaniment and support offered by the United States and the Australian Governments in the aftermath of her father's death. She, however, lamented that the government of Uruguay had never called her family to express condolences or support. Speaking about compensations to the victims and their families, Virginia recalled an argument that she had with US official Kenneth Feinberg, the chief of staff of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. She said that she felt that the committee did not consider all lives to be equal, arguing that the Fund deduced the payments based on the age, health issues, and work life of the victims.

Rubén Fernández, a colleague of Domínguez at SBS Radio, recalled that the day of the attacks, the computer of a colleague of his at the SBS Radio office had a frozen blue screen which read: "Former Uruguayan cyclist champion dead in the September 11 attacks." Soraya Caicedo, an executive producer of SBS Radio, echoed seeing the blue screen on the computer of that employee, adding that they immediately called Domínguez's family to confirm his death.

Domínguez was honoured by an Australian Broadcasting Corporation note which highlighted him as someone who "helped Latinos adapt to the Australian lifestyle", adding that he had been a prominent Latino even before Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin or Jennifer Lopez who, ABC said, "made of Latinos a trend". Conversely, some Uruguayan media lamented that the main Australian media services briefly remembered Domínguez as an "immigrant" in Australia.