The Hispanic-Cuban athlete Yulenmis Aguilar (Bayamo, 1996) has become the hope of the Spanish javelin. The government of Pedro Sánchez granted her nationality in April 2024 so that she could compete in the Paris Olympic Games. Her journey has not been easy because it has been plagued by injuries, especially in one shoulder, which dislocates continuously due to a genetic issue. Also, there has been a lack of confidence from Cuban coaches.
She does not impose the obligation of winning a medal in Paris, she comes from an injury and is aware that if it cannot be now, there will be more Europeans and other Olympic Games in four years. She acknowledges that there are another 36 women who have prepared just like her to achieve a medal, but she does not deny that she would like to win it with the colors of Spain because that country opened doors for her that were closed in Cuba, and in her opinion, second chances are worth more than first ones.
Whether she is ready to step onto the podium or not will be known starting August 7, at 10:25 AM, when the qualifying round for the Paris final takes place. The following day, she turns 29. After competing with the Europeans in Rome, Yulenmis Aguilar will also fulfill her Olympic dream in Paris. She recently became the champion of Spain at the beginning of July, with a score of 59.85, but as her friends tell her: "Yul, nothing is enough for you." She wants and needs more.
Since she was 11 years old, Yulenmis Aguilar has practiced athletics in Cuba, but it wasn't until she turned 13 that she picked up a javelin for the first time. It was then that her teachers realized she had a powerful arm, and she fell in love with this sport that, now at 28 years old, takes her to the Paris Olympics to defend the colors of the Spanish flag.
In 2015 it couldn't happen. At 18 years old, she was at the World Athletics Championship in Beijing, but she remembers that year as very "complicated." She had just broken the world record, but she was also coming off a shoulder injury. Looking back, she now understands that at that moment she wasn't prepared to face a world championship.
In 2016, she went to the Olympic Games at the age of 19 with an ankle that had a fracture she had sustained during a training camp in Mexico. In 2018, she participated in the Central American and Caribbean Games, won the bronze medal, and the directors of the Cuba team told her that they would not count on her for the following season. For the Cuban coaches, she had not performed well enough.
At 21, she found it hard to accept that the dream of winning an Olympic medal was fading away. But not only that. At that time, she believed her sports career would last another ten to fifteen years, and overnight she found herself with absolutely nothing. In Cuba, they gave up on her professional future, and personally, it was very tough for her.
To make a living in Bayamo, Yulenmis Aguilar started working in a private gym and completed her studies. She decided that the world was not going to end for her and continued with her life.
But everything changed in 2019 when she learned that there was a coach in Galicia who could help her return to athletics. The Spaniards offered her a contract in 2020 to start in April of that year, but the coronavirus pandemic hit, Cuba closed its airports, and she couldn't travel until December, eight months later.
The recovery was very difficult because she came with excess weight from Cuba. She began working in a club with small children, which was her first job in Spain, and during that time, she had her first contact with her coach, who took her in at his home, fed her, and took care of her. It was this way that he became like a father to her because he restored her passion for the sport and also made her believe that she still had a sports career ahead of her.
When she refers to him, she talks about "a father" who "has never let her down." And from that personal relationship, successes in her sports career began to emerge.
Last April, she had marks of 63.90 and took it for granted that with those numbers she wouldn't be the first in the world, but she sent a warning to navigators. "I'm not going to sit at home. I’m going to work." And while working, a new injury came.
Normally, Yulenmis Aguilar trains five hours a day: two in the morning and three in the afternoon. She would like to spend more time training, but she is not allowed to. Physically and athletically, she felt "very good" in April, but that strength was even greater on a mental level because only a person who has gone through her process, who has lost everything, who has regained everything, and who has returned to an Olympic competition level can understand to what extent self-esteem is reinforced.
However, Yulenmis Aguilar works to enjoy the competition and does not impose the obligation of winning a medal in Paris. Even so, Spanish sports predictions include that Olympic medal if she arrives fully recovered.
"The cards are played, just waiting to see how the game ends and that my big dream doesn't collapse," she said before qualifying for Paris.
She is one of the 20 Cuban athletes competing in these Olympic Games in Paris under different flags. Thirteen nations are benefiting from the talent of those born on the island. Two other compatriots were selected to join the Refugee Team: canoeist Fernando Dayán Jorge and weightlifter Ramiro Mora.
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