Cuban athlete Yasmani Copello Escobar (Havana, 1987) will defend the colors of the Turkish flag in the men's 400-meter hurdles qualifying event, scheduled in the calendar of the Paris Olympic Games for next Monday, August 5, starting at 10:05 AM. There will be a repechage on August 6 at 12:00 PM. Then come the semifinals on August 7 at 7:35 PM, and the final will be on August 9 at 9:45 PM (European time).

At 37 years old, the Cuban, who became a Turkish citizen in 2014, has a history full of hurdles (for better and for worse) in his sports career. He started in athletics at the age of 12, but before that, he had done boxing. He made the leap to the track thanks to a teacher he had, who told him to stop the nonsense of boxing, that he was very fast and should do athletics. And so it was. He started in the 110 hurdles and then began training with Omar Demístocle González Ortiz, a very important man in his career, who always told him that he was going to be an Olympian, as he indeed has become.

As a teenager, he had growth problems, with knee pain, but from one year to the next he had a growth spurt. At 19, he became the junior champion in the men's 400-meter hurdles in Cuba, but due to internal policies of the Island, he did not attend his first world championship.

The story repeated itself in 2006 when he joined the national team and only stayed for two months because he was prohibited from training with his usual coach. He then won silver at the Central American and Caribbean Games in 2008, held in Cali, Colombia. That year, he won gold in the 4X400 with the Cuban team that participated in the Ibero-American Athletics Championship in Iquique, Chile.

His experience with the Cuban national team was not good. Years later, he recalled that he always felt very pressured. They instilled in them that he had to win against the one in front and not let the one behind win. The pressure was very high, and he did not enjoy it.

In 2010, he was dropped from the national team at just 23 years old because cuts needed to be made, and he continued training, traveling from Old Havana to the Pedro Marrero stadium in Playa, and to Guanabo to run on the beach sand, "always with the anger of showing them that they were wrong." This is how he sought his future outside of Cuba.

The Spanish stage

In 2011, he began training in Spain with the Club Playas de Castellón, but there was a Spanish athlete there who had similar times to him, and when the cuts came, Copello found himself out once again. At that moment, he went through a tough time and experienced a sports decline that made him consider returning to Cuba.

In July of that year, a Bulgarian manager mentioned to him the possibility of joining a club in Turkey, on the condition that he competed in all disciplines to earn points. The same night the Turks saw the talent he had, they offered him nationality.

In Turkey, his sports career changed, especially after he started training with the Italian Massimo Matrone. In 2015, he raced between ten and twelve times to hit the minimum standard for the World Championship in Beijing. They required a time of 49.40, and he was running 49.70, 49.80. He even traveled for 22 hours to compete in Greece to seek the minimum. He arrived there and recorded a time of 49.54, and the coach told him he no longer knew what to do, that it was all in his legs. Seven days before the deadline, he asked the club to organize a national race, and in that race, he achieved 49.39, the world minimum, and after achieving it, he felt his body had been released. Shortly after, he clocked times of 48.92, 48.64... As his coach said, it was all in his legs.

The medals are arriving.

In 2016, he was crowned European champion in the 400-meter hurdles in Amsterdam. That day he cried because he saw how all his efforts had been worth it. Those were tears, as he told Martí Noticias, of "a lifetime of sacrifices." That year, his results continued to be elite. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, he won the bronze medal. Things continued to improve, and in 2017 he won silver at the World Athletics Championships in London, ahead of the American Kerron Clement, who had finished in second place in Rio. This was the first medal that Turkey achieved at a World Championship.

Now the Cuban arrives at the Paris Olympic Games with an elitist track record: he has stood on the podium at an Olympic Games, at a World Championship, and at a European Championship. His bronze in Rio was achieved with a time of 47.92, and the world record in this discipline is 46.98.

In love with his mom's black beans and music, this Cuban veteran athlete, standing at 1.91 meters tall, laughs like a child and trains hard after, as he himself states on his Instagram account, unlocking the "36+1," alluding to his 37 years.

The first step to getting on the podium is qualifying for the Games, and that has already been accomplished. Now it’s time to seek qualification for the final in Paris. Once inside, anything can happen.

He is one of the 20 Cuban athletes competing under different flags at these Paris Olympic Games. Thirteen nations benefit from the talent of those born on the island. Two other compatriots were selected to be part of the Refugee Team: kayaker Fernando Dayán Jorge and weightlifter Ramiro Mora.