“I have felt that my world was collapsing,” Ayumi Leiva, a Cuban judoka who receives political asylum in Spain, tells AS. His sadness is due to the refusal of the Royal Spanish Federation of Judo and Associated Sports to let her compete in the Spanish Championships held yesterday in Madrid on understanding that she cannot prove that she has been practicing this sport for three years.
Ayumi, who is 19 years old, arrived in Spain in August. He was traveling with his country’s expedition to the Junior Pan American Championship in Colombia when they were blocked at the Barajas airport. She and another colleague took advantage of an oversight to appear at the police station and request asylum. While the procedures are being carried out, the Red Cross temporarily placed him in an apartment in Valencia. There he found shelter in the training group led by Sugoi Uriarte, European champion, world silver and Olympic diploma. “I never thought it would be better for me. Now I have everything I want. I have no words to describe how my companions have been with me. All of them, without exception. From minute zero that I arrived. That will be a nice memory that I will always have it in my heart. For me they are not companions, they are family, “he says with affection from Uriarte and his pupils.
Days ago Ayumi sent a letter to the president of the RFEJYDA, Juan Carlos Barcos, exposing his situation and requesting permission to participate in the Nationals. He argues that he has been doing judo for eleven years and that he has the papers to prove it, as well as his situation in order. In fact, he assures that he wants to obtain Spanish citizenship. “After so many efforts and training, they give me that news. My dream this year was to compete in that championship,” says Leiva desperately, who decided to leave Cuba because there “he was not prospering.”
“I risked losing everything, not seeing my family, my friends … But I had to get ahead,” she explains excitedly. From here he tries to help his family financially and in the letter to the Federation he affirms that with what he saves from diets he can send enough money to his mother to “eat well for two weeks.” “With me here my mother is better,” he confesses. To those who have not allowed him to compete, he says: “You will see my potential.”
