Havana/The Cuban fighter Yusneylis Guzmán López, runner-up Olympian in the 50 kilograms of wrestling at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, left the national delegation during a stopover in Mexico, when the team was traveling to Brazil. The information was disseminated by Roly Dámaso, former Cuban wrestler and sports commentator specialized in the discipline.
The former athlete claimed to have received information from three sources about Guzmán’s decision, known as The Chiquiwho became the first Cuban woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling.
Dámaso pointed to the conditions on the Island that have caused Cuban athletes to prefer to flee the national sports system in search of opportunities outside of Cuba and defended their right to decide about their professional careers.
“How long will Cuban sport continue to lose athletes who have dedicated a good part of their lives to representing their country?” he questioned, adding that “Cuban sport needs athletes, but, above all, it needs its athletes to have the freedom to decide their own destiny.”
Guzmán López won silver after losing in the final of the less than 50 kilo category to the American Sarah Hildebrandt
In Paris 2024, Guzmán López won silver after losing in the final of the less than 50 kilo category to the American Sarah Hildebrandt. Along the way she had defeated the Turkish Evin Demirhan 7-6 and the Lithuanian Gabija Dilytė 10-0. She later lost 0-5 in the semifinals to India’s Vinesh Phogat, but reached the final after her rival was disqualified for not making the regulation weight.
The international career of the 30-year-old from Havana includes titles at the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile 2023 and the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador 2023, in addition to silver medals in Veracruz 2014 and Lima 2019.
Due to her sports results, she was recognized as the best female athlete in Cuba in 2024 and, in March 2025, Inder also gave her a car in recognition of her performance, although it was reported shortly after that the vehicle had defects.
Then, 14ymedio reported that the cars delivered were those that were withdrawn from tourism income and that the regime used to encourage retired athletes, coaches and active athletes for their “delivery and loyalty” in an event held at the Coliseum of the Ciudad Deportiva in Havana.
Guzmán López’s escape occurs less than a month after the abandonment of weightlifters Yeniuska Mirabal and Yorelvis Machado
Guzmán López’s escape occurs less than a month after the weightlifters abandoned Yeniuska Mirabal and Yorelvis Machadowho left the Cuban team’s concentration in Tepic, Mexico, before participating in the Pan American weightlifting qualifier for Lima 2027.
Since 2013, according to Inder himself, the flight of athletes far exceeds a thousand. The drain on talent has had an impact on the island’s international results. The most recent example was Paris 2024. In those Olympic Games, the Cubans who participated achieved a total of 18 medals. Of them, however, only nine belong to the Cuban delegation: gold in Greco-Roman wrestling and another in boxing; silver in wrestling and bronze in Greco-Roman wrestling, wrestling (2), boxing, canoeing and taekwondo. The rest, one gold, four silver and four bronze, were taken by the exiled athletes of the Island.
The 21 Cuban athletes who attended France representing other countries won those medals with a much higher proportion than the representatives of the Island, who attended the summer event with a delegation of 61 competitors in 16 disciplines. That poor harvest was worst in 52 years.
Since the disappearance of the Soviet Union, which provided resources for the preparation of athletes, Cuban sport has plummeted. The 1992 Barcelona games, when the Island obtained 30 medals, marked the climax for Cuba. Other successes accompanied her in Athens 1996 (25 medals), Sydney 2000 (29), Athens 2004 (27) and Beijing 2008 (30), but, from there, the situation only worsened. Twelve athletes stood on the podium in London 2012, 11 in Rio 2016, 15 in Tokyo 2020 and nine in Paris.
