Enmanuel Reyes Pla (Havana, 31 years old) is one of the main strongholds of the Spanish amateur boxing team. After being on the verge of a medal in Tokyo 2020, the 92 kilos of the National Team He will live his second Olympic event in Paris. Now he is going through a sweet moment, but the boxer does not forget what he had to go through to be able to leave his country in search of a better future. “They keep a high-level athlete like he’s in a prison. It is very difficult to leave the island“he reveals.
The boxer began practicing this sport when he was five years old to learn how to defend himself. He soon stood out and in his teens joined the national team. There he went through stages, but he was always “the second one.” “First at 80 kilos and then at 91 he was not the main one. Time passed and I could do two things: stay there and grow old or look for a way out. The level is given to you by the competition. I knew that if I had the chance I could reach the top, but training daily is not the same as fighting against top people. When I had faced them I had beaten them,” remembers the boxer.
Part of his family had lived in A Coruña for almost two decades, so he tried to join them in 2019. His uncle, having the papers in order, helped him in the adventure. “Being communists, Russia was allowed to fly from Cuba. A large part of the immigration that came to Europe from there took the same route. They passed to Belarus, which had a border with Polandand then you had to cross countries until you reached the destination you wanted. When I went, things had gotten ugly at that border and he couldn’t cross. I had to return to Moscow“he remembers. In the Russian capital he spent almost six months between one attempt and another. His uncle was in charge of facilitating everything for him. Since he did not have papers, if the police stopped him they could blackmail him to get money. Since there was none, Reyes Pla knew cases in which they had released people in the middle of nowhere at -20 degrees.
The boxer’s penultimate attempt was through the air. He bought a return ticket with a stopover in Austria and upon arriving in the European Union he requested asylum. They granted it to him and he stayed in a refugee camp. Once there, he attempted to cross into Germany by bus. “When the police reviewed the documents, and I had nothing, They arrested me and I was imprisoned for just over a month. Then they returned me to Austria. People are like that and I tried the path that they had told me worked. Fed up, I decided to buy a flight to Spain. When I was going to the airport I thought that the police would ask for my passport and everything would be over.. It didn’t happen. Then I found out that when entering the Schengen area it was not necessary. That’s how I was able to get to Spain and reunite with my family,” says Reyes Pla.
Already in Galicia, the Cuban contacted members of the national team. He knew them from some of the internationals’ stays in his country. They knew of his quality and gave him the opportunity at the same time that they began to process his nationality. He was a luxury reinforcement. Almost without warning (he obtained permission less than a month later) he was able to participate in the pre-Olympic. The competition was stopped halfway due to the pandemic. “They were very hard moments. It was not known if there would be Games or not. If there were, perhaps, they were going to use rankings to qualify and there would be no pre-Olympic. He was out because he had not been able to compete for Spain yet, had been fighting under a neutral flag for months. I had a bad time psychologically. Luckily, there was a qualifying tournament and I was able to get my place for Tokyo 2020,” he recalls.
He has the Japanese quote engraved in his memory: “The inauguration, even though there was no audience, was something spectacular.” In the first Games she went viral after stating that “he had gone to tear off his heads”, a phrase that was taken out of context in a previous match and that made a bad impression in his country. He followed the thread and chance made him meet Julio César La Cruz in the quarterfinals. He was one step away from a medal in a fight he won, but the judges took him away from it. “I stay more with my feeling. He had beaten me five times, but I hardly competed, I just trained. At that moment I had just measured myself against the best and I knew that he was not expecting to see me like this.“, Add.
The injustice on the cards and everything he experienced before made him rethink his life after the Games, so he decided to become a Muslim. “I needed a change and I started reading a lot of information. I had always believed in God and was a Christian, but I discovered something that suited me more. Some of my teammates are also Muslims and they advised me to read. I always tell people that God and I understand each other, so don’t think about it any further. I have always believed that there is someone who protects us and after reading a lot, I decided to convert.”says the boxer shortly after completing his second Ramadan.
In sports, Reyes Pla needed the second pre-Olympic to qualify for the Games. “In the first one I was not at 100%, but for the second I reached a great level. It has been almost better for me. The tournament was in March and that way I can get to Paris quickly and after high-level fights.“, the Hispanic-Cuban warns excitedly. Three years ago the medal was just one step away, in 2024 he is convinced that he will return to Spain with the metal that shines the brightest. His dream of leaving his country, closer.
