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Reineri Andreu Ortega, a Cuban wrestler who is a two-time world champion under-23 and a two-time Pan American champion, voluntarily withdrew his lawsuit against the NCAA at the end of last week, bringing an end to a legal battle that aimed to enable him to compete at Iowa State University (ISU), local media reported.
The lawsuit, filed in December 2025, was dismissed without any public disclosure of whether an agreement was reached between the parties.
The case centered around the so-called "five-year eligibility clock" of the NCAA, the rule that determines when an athlete's right to compete in collegiate sports begins and expires.
According to the NCAA regulations, that clock starts ticking from the first full-time enrollment at any university worldwide, regardless of whether it is a member of the NCAA or if the student participated in any sport.
Ortega completed secondary school in Cuba in the spring of 2016, and that same fall, he began studying at Manuel Fajardo University, an institution without NCAA affiliation or intercollegiate sports.
From 2017 to the spring of 2019, he trained and competed for the Cuban National Team—a non-collegiate entity—while continuing his studies at Manuel Fajardo.
In December 2022, Ortega left the Cuban national team and arrived in the United States as a refugee.
In the spring of 2023, he enrolled at ISU, where he earned a spot on the wrestling team, but he did not end up competing.
The NCAA denied his eligibility request beyond the 2022-23 season, arguing that his clock started in 2016 when he enrolled at Manuel Fajardo, not when he arrived at Iowa.
Ortega's attorneys argued that this interpretation violates antitrust laws and unjustifiably restricts their ability to "obtain meaningful compensation that is now available to other NCAA Division I athletes."
The argument was based on the 2021 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that paved the way for college athletes to receive compensation for the use of their name, image, and likeness, a market that the lawsuit itself described as a multibillion-dollar industry.
The defense pointed out that the rule could render students ineligible if they "attend a university not affiliated with the NCAA for three years without participating in any sport, take two years off for personal reasons, transfer to an NCAA university, and will have exhausted their eligibility without ever having competed in a college sport."
The NCAA countered that prohibiting the application of the five-year rule would not make Ortega eligible anyway, because there are other factors preventing him from competing that were not challenged in the lawsuit.
The agency also stated that the rule does not have a "commercial nature" and therefore is not subject to the Sherman Act.
On April 23, Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger denied the injunction requested by Ortega, determining that he had not demonstrated "sufficient likelihood of success" in his antitrust argument.
After that judicial setback, and with no real possibility of competing in the 2026-27 season, their lawyers decided to voluntarily withdraw from the legal action.
Ortega, who competes in the 130-pound category, claimed that his options in professional wrestling after university are very limited, making a solution within the university system especially urgent.
The case adds to the exodus of Cuban athletes who have left the national team in recent years, a pattern that reflects dissatisfaction with a state sports system that does not provide professional contracts or direct benefits to the athletes.
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