Robeisy Ramírez: "Why four Olympic golds if I was going to continue with the same misery"

HeCuban boxer Robeisy Ramírez He assured that he does not regret leaving his country, where he suffered humiliation from the government, even though he had already won two Olympic titles.

"The Train" Ramírez, whoIn 2018 he defected from the national delegation in Mexico, said toFirst impact ofUnivisionthat his life changed after winning his first Olympic medal in London 2012, and that the regime was confident that he could obtain four in total.

"When you open your mind you say: 'Why, what am I doing with winning four if I'm going to continue with the misery in which those who are still there are, with two medals just like me,' he clarified.

Robeisy, 28 years old, related that in Cuba if he had money to buy food there was no food, and if there is food "which there never is, you don't have the money because you work and it doesn't give you any."

After his victory at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, he decided to tattoo the Olympic rings on his left arm as a souvenir of his feat, but the government ordered him to erase them, under the threat of never boxing again.

"I accept. When they give me that ultimatum: 'Either you take it off or you don't box anymore.' I don't know how to do anything else, I've been boxing all my life," he said.

Born in Cienfuegos, the boxer recalled the limitations that athletes in Cuba suffer when training.

"The coach had three pairs of gloves for 10, 15 boys who were the ones we were training, and sometimes even more, and we had to take turns; many things..." he recalled.

"El Tren" Ramírez continued his career as a professional boxer in the United States, where he has achieved nine victories, five of them by knockout, and a single defeat, and is preparing to fight for the world featherweight title.

Last July,Robeisy called his countryman Julio César la Cruz "kneeling of the dictatorship", after he shouted "Patria y Vida no!, Patria o Muerte, Venceremos!", after his victory against the Cuban nationalized Spanish Enmanuel Reyes in the Tokyo Olympics.

"Julio César La Cruz—being in a democracy like Japan—chose to repeat the communist refrain Homeland or Death. That is his prerogative. Mine is to reaffirm myself on the side of freedom and denounce him as the kneeling Cuban dictatorship that he is," Ramírez expressed on his Facebook wall.