This is the first time a Cuban Olympic athlete has dropped out during the Games since Rolando Arrojo in 1996.
MÉRIDA, Mexico – Cuban rower Yariulvis Cobas escaped from the Cuban delegation participating in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The news was reported on Friday evening as a scoop by independent journalist Leonardo Ruiz, from Play-Off Magazine and confirmed by other means.
According to journalist Francys RomeroThis is the first reported withdrawal of a Cuban during the Olympics since Rolando Arrojo in 1996.
Cobas, 33, left the Olympic village after finishing 27th in the single scull among 32 competitors, Romero said.
Before the rower’s withdrawal, the first withdrawal of the Cuban delegation at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games occurred even before the official opening of the Olympic event.
Judoka Dayle Ojeda (+78 kg), who played the role of Uke (assistant) for Idalys Ortiz, the main figure in the +78 kg division who ultimately did not win any medals, decided to stay in the French capital.
The news was released by the media Cubalite, which, citing judo specialist Pedro Chacón Sánchez, stated that Ojeda “upon returning to Cuba, along with other judokas who performed the same function as her, decided to abandon the concentration” and remain in Paris.
Dayle Ojeda, a native of Havana, was a silver medalist at the Varadero Pan American Open in 2023 and 2024; on both occasions she was defeated by fellow Cuban Naomis Elizarde. She also participated in the 2017 Pan American Championship, where she lost in the bronze medal match to American Nina Cutro-Kelly.
The Cuban delegation to Paris 2024 is made up of 61 athletes, 34 men and 27 women, distributed across 16 sports. This is the smallest representation of Cuba at the Olympic Games since the 1964 Games.
As of Saturday morning, the Cubans have not managed to open the medal table.
