Finally, four judokas will represent Cuba in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, led by the multi-medallist in summer events and flag bearer of the delegation Idalys Ortiz.
The London-2012 champion in +78 kg took 19th place in the classification ranking (12th directly) with an accumulated 2983 points and thus ensured her presence in her fifth Olympic Games.
In addition to the great figures of powers such as France and Japan, other athletes have been putting their foot down in this contest to reach the City of Light and representatives from Türkiye, China, Italy and South Korea have been seen on the podiums.
Idalys won bronze medals twice, was fifth in a Grand Slam and finished in the round of 16 three times.
Of all the judokas who will take part in Paris, only Idalys and the local idol Teddy Riner have won four (individual) medals in these competitions. The Japanese Ryoko Tani – now retired – owns five.
The Cuban star will be accompanied by Andy Granda (+100 kg), Iván Silva (90kg) and Maylín del Toro (63 kg).
In the case of Granda, he was the one who probably had a more comfortable qualifying period. His victory in the Tashkent-2022 World Championship added valuable points (one thousand) to the ranking – 50% of the score is taken from the first half of the qualifying process – and by the final stretch, in 2024, he was placed in five opportunities among the best eight with three podiums included. Her perseverance took him to fifth place in the ranking with 5,554 units.
Silva went from less to more. From being out of the zone, he climbed to tenth position thanks to an excellent European tour in which he achieved a first place, a third and two fifths, in addition to a seventh in the World Cup and the Pan American title. His final total is 4260 points.
Maylín obtained her ticket through the continental quota, which is assigned according to the number of points, regardless of gender and weight category and which corresponds to one per country.
Maylín was located on step 21 with 3,036 units. This year she was seventh three times in Grand Slam tournaments, she won the bronze medal in the continental competition and finished between positions nine to 16 in the Abu Dhabi world event.
