Havana/“Judo is your future, it will get you ahead,” Ayumi Leiva, the exiled Cuban judoka, remembers what her mother told her. “In Cuba I couldn’t express myself, so I rejected judo, but then I understood that it wasn’t the sport, but the coaches,” the athlete told the portal this week. Visibility before winning the Spanish championship on Monday and closing the year 2024 with four more medals: gold in the European meeting, silver in the Grand Prix of Zagreb (Croatia) and bronze in the Grand Slam of Astana and Antalya (Turkey). .
“I didn’t know what it felt like to listen to your country’s anthem and appreciate it from the top of the podium,” the young woman who defected in 2021 along with Nahomys Acosta during a stopover in Madrid expressed on her Facebook account. Minutes earlier she had won her first title for Spain, which she has represented since 2023. “I am super proud of myself and the things I am building,” she added.
Laura Gómez Ropiñón, the coach who gave him the opportunity in Valencia, highlighted the title he won in the European championship. “Ayumi has shone as only she knows how. Only she knows everything that has happened to get here. I’m sure no one will be able to take you down.”
Leiva has turned the page, leaving behind Cuban judo, where he was part of the national team for two years. A place where the teachers “psychologically abused” her and where she believes that they “ruin the girls verbally.” According to him, in training each lesson was accompanied by screams.
Spain, she tells the same media, offered her a new perspective, surrounding her with coaches and people who supported her, giving her the treatment and discipline necessary to reach her highest level on the tatami. “I began to notice the difference between Cuba and Spain. That difference was in the way the coaches taught me. When I arrived here, I learned about the positive things and everything that could contribute to me.”
/ Facebook/Ayumi Leiva
While Leiva adds medals for Spain, on the Island, especially on the official portal Jitthe space for judo has been reduced to the publications of the under-13 team. The edition reviewed the “outstanding” performance of the athletes in the Varadero 2024 Pan American Children’s Judo tournament, in which Brazil dominated.
Judo, which has awarded the Island 6 gold, 15 silver and 16 bronze medals in the Olympic Games, is no longer a strong Cuban sport in international tournaments. Last April, Jonathan Charón, Aleanny Carbonell and Maylín del Toro achieved bronze in the Pan American and Oceania Judo Championships in Rio de Janeiro. However, the most talked about performance came from Magdiel Estrada. The Pan American and Central American champion escaped from the Cuban delegation in Brazil.
Dayle Ojeda also escaped from the island’s squad that was in France prior to the Olympic Games in Paris 2024. The athlete, in the 78 kilogram category, helped in the preparation of Idalys Ortiz, the team’s flag bearer.
Kaliema Antomarchi, bronze medalist at the Budapest World Cup (2017) and runner-up at the Lima Pan American Games (2019), left the Island in 2023 and headed to Serbia.
The list of escapees in recent years also includes Vanesa Godinez, Mellisa Hurtado, Santa Virgen Romero, Blanca Elena Torres and Lutmary García.
