Former freestyle wrestler Elpidio Martén Kindelán, physiotherapist for the Cuban wrestling team, left the national delegation in Spain shortly before the start of the XXXIII Olympic Games in the capital of France.
The wrestling expert Roly Dámaso spread the news on social media this Sunday: "The parade of figures from Cuban sports continues, who decide to 'leave' the delegations a few days before the 2024 Paris Olympics."
According to Dámaso, a source informed him that Martén was "informed in Spain that he no longer belonged to the delegation that will participate in the Olympic Games due to 'budget cut issues'."
The note does not specify the date when Martén, who has over 30 years of experience as a physiotherapist, ended his involvement with the Cuban team, only that the event "occurred in Spain before the teams traveled to France," said Dámaso.
Precisely, at the beginning of July, Cuba attended the Wrestling Grand Prix of Spain, where it was represented by three male freestyle wrestlers and two women.
In the Spanish wrestling competition, freestyle wrestlers Alejandro Valdés (65 kg) and Arturo Silot (97 kg), and Milaymis Marín (76 kg) in the women's category, won the titles in their respective divisions.
The Grand Prize was the only competition for Cuban women and freestyle wrestlers in the final stretch of their Olympic preparation, said the official sports portal JIT. After the tournament, they will carry out training camps in Madrid and the French city of Clermont-Ferrand, prior to entering the Paris 2024 Olympic Village.
Cuba will participate in the Olympic Games in France with a reduced delegation consisting of 62 athletes - the smallest since Tokyo 1964 - ten of them in the disciplines of freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. Greco-Roman wrestler Mijaín López, from the 130-kilogram division, is the Cuban flag bearer at the Olympic event.
This year has seen a continuation of the "bleeding out" of Cuban athletes - as well as coaches and medical staff - who are leaving the country or escaping from national delegations before or during competitions abroad, including several from freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling.
In May, Greco-Roman wrestler Ángel Pacheco, weighing 130 kilograms, left the Cuban team in Croatia during a training camp as part of the team's preparation for the Olympic event. Pacheco had traveled to that country among the selected athletes to support other colleagues in their training.
Three months earlier, the wrestlers Susana Martínez (76 kg), Santiago Hernández (57 kg), and Osmany Diversent (57 kg), who were in Acapulco, Mexico, to participate in the Pan American Championship in the Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling categories, and later in a competition that would grant tickets to Paris 2024, escaped from the delegation.
In March 2023, two members of the women's wrestling team left the team during a stopover in Mexico on a flight to El Salvador, where they would prepare for the Central American and Caribbean Games.
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