MADRID, Spain.- At 33 years old, Cuban-born American judoka María Celia Laborde is about to experience one of the most important moments of her career: her first Olympic Games. In a recent interview with CubaNetLaborde shared his expectations, details of the preparation and his vision on the American team of judo.
Laborde will compete in the 48 kilo category in Paris with the northern delegation, and her goals are clear: “I hope to win a medal, get on the podium and put in a good performance. I feel good, we have had a super intense preparation. We spent two weeks in Japan training and then we spent another two weeks in Spain, in the Benidorm camp and in Valencia. Now we are here in Florida training for the rest of the race and on Monday we will leave for Paris.”
The American judo team, made up of four representatives, has had a diverse but equally rigorous preparation. “The other girl (Angélica Delgado) was, like me, training in Japan and Spain; while the two boys (Jack Yonezuka and John Jayne), in addition to Spain, prepared in Canada. We all have good chances and we are ready to do well,” said Laborde.
The athlete describes the road to Olympic qualification as “very long, tedious and difficult,” as it involves four years of constant competition. However, her performance at the World Masters Championships, where she won a silver medal in 2023, was key to her qualification. This medal was the first for the United States at this event since 2016.
“There are competitions every weekend and we have to go to most of them because if we don’t we will go up in the rankings and what we want is to go down, to be among the top ten so that the draw will be easier for us and the first fights will be less complicated until we move up. It was a very difficult year, it was a year of tears; some of my teammates almost didn’t qualify. Actually I was luckier because I won the medal in the World Master Championship which gave me a lot of points and so I was already qualified since August of last year, but some of my teammates had a very hard time,” Laborde said.
Regarding the silver medal at the World Masters Championship, Laborde describes it as incredible. “When I saw myself with that medal, I said, wow, because the truth is that after almost eight years of retirement, coming back and winning a world medal was not in my expectations. It was a joy for me, a joy for the country in general, USA Judo. Everyone was super happy, congratulating me. It really was one of the best days of my life,” she says.
Asked about other important moments in her career, she recalls the individual medal at the World Championships Judo (2014) in Chelyabinsk, Russia, and the gold medal at the Pan American Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador, also in 2014, where she beat two Olympic champions: Argentina’s Paula Pareto and Brazil’s Sara Meneses. She also mentions the world team bronze medal she won in 2013. “All the girls put in their effort and it was really wonderful, together, to win that medal,” she recalls.
Training under the guidance of Peruvian-American Johnny Prado at the Kitsusai National Center in Coral Spring, Florida, has been crucial for Laborde. “Johnny Prado and the team are wonderful. Here in the United States I have nowhere to train judo because there are not many people in my weight class. And so he (Johnny Prado) always sends me to Japan, to Spain…” Laborde is grateful for the support she has received at the Kitsusai National Center in general. “I couldn’t be happier,” she says.
The judoka does not forget to mention her family as the main motivation in her beginnings: “My first influences in my career were my uncle, my grandmother and my father,” she says. She also remembers: “When I started, they helped me a lot Legna Verdecia and now Israel Hernández”, both Cuban Olympic judokas.
María Celia Laborade made the decision not to return to Cuba, to “seek a better future,” during the Central American and Caribbean Games in Veracruz, Mexico, in 2014. At that competition, after winning the gold medal, she left the delegation; she traveled to the border with the United States and requested asylum. In 2021, she received U.S. citizenship and has competed for the United States since 2022, winning bronze at the Pan American Games in Lima (Peru), Calgary (Canada) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); as well as at the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile 2023.
Her decision to leave the Cuban team in Veracruz kept her away from competitions for years and deprived her of being in the 2016 Olympic event, for which she was practically qualified; but now María Celia Laborde is just a few days away from fulfilling her Olympic dream, and in the Paris Gameswho is seen as one of the great judokas to follow, will be looking to add another medal to her list of achievements.
