2024-08-17 02:00:22
Paris 2024 left stories of improvement and lessons in the shadow of many athletes. However, there are stories that have come to light behind the curtain of sports’ biggest stage. And although they don’t emphasize sports achievements, they show the stories of life. This is the example of Dayle Ojeda, the judoka who escaped from Paris. This is your story.
Ojeda landed in Paris a few days before the Olympics, taking part in the training of Idalys Ortiz, the leading judoka in her home country who competes at +78 kg. However, as he did not compete in Paris 2024, the 30-year-old from Havana had to return to his country before the start of the Olympic event. But Dayle didn’t take the plane back. After two weeks without news from her, she finally found her new destination: Valencia, Spain.
Due to the social and political situation in Cuba, some athletes have been forced, in recent years, to leave their home and seek a better future. After several Games in which the Cuban Spaniards, the boxer Emanuel Reyes Pla and the athlete Jason Díaz, won medals, the judoka declares her dream to grow as a person and as an athlete in the country where her companion won.
“I feel good, now calmer and more confident, eager to start a new life,” she admits after a few weeks of uncertainty. From running in Paris 2024 to the dream of winning a medal with Spain in Los Angeles 2028. Dayle Ojeda smiles again and trains at the Valencia Training Camp, the campus that brings together hundreds of international judokas in the capital of Turia every summer directed by Sugoi Uriarte. «No one is willing to leave a life behind. It is very difficult to leave everything without being able to say goodbye. My dream is to represent Spain and become an Olympic medalist. It’s my way of saying thank you for everything they’re doing,” he says.
#abandonment #Paris #training #Valencia