The judoka and mixed martial arts fighter Melissa Hurtado is sharing on her social media various episodes detailing the night she defected from the Cuban judo team during a training camp in France at the beginning of 2023.
The incident captured the attention of the press at the time due to the massive escape of athletes. Hurtado recounts how that night of fleeing combined extreme cold, heavy suitcases, an unpaid train ride, and the sudden arrival of agents at six in the morning searching for the missing individuals.
Hurtado, who currently resides in France with a ten-year permanent permit and competes in mixed martial arts with an undefeated record of 3-0, reported in his Instagram videos that the decision was made before getting on the plane.
"Before I left Cuba, I already knew the decision, what I was going to do. Before I left Cuba, I knew that I was not going to return," he stated in the first episode of his series.
The team was in Amiens, about two hours from Paris, preparing for Olympic qualifying competitions. Hurtado had planned to wait until the Grand Slam in Paris to stay, but those plans changed when he learned that a teammate also wanted to escape.
Coordinating the escape without raising suspicions was the first obstacle: "You couldn't talk about it because you don't know who is who, or if someone is a snitch and will tell the coach," she explained. Both of them relied on a trusted friend who knew the procedure.
The night of the escape added another complication: Hurtado shared a room with a teammate who was not part of the plan, and that athlete was unable to sleep; she was suffering from insomnia.
They finally found a way to slip away and set off in a city they did not know, without speaking French and leaving behind most of their belongings.
"We left in the early morning, wandering around without speaking French, without our suitcases. We left all the boxes of tobacco we had. We left everything there, the kimonos, because that added a lot of weight," he recalled.
They walked for about 30 minutes in freezing temperatures to a train terminal. "There was a train leaving for Paris at 6:00 a.m. It was so cold it could crack stones," he described.
Without knowing how to purchase the ticket, they boarded the train without paying: "We didn't pay for the train. We didn't know. If an inspector had caught us, we might have even received a fine."
At dawn, the reaction of the Cuban team was swift. According to Hurtado, agents of the security forces whom she refers to as "the FBI" burst into the room of the judokas who remained with the delegation.
"The FBI kicked down the door of the other girls who were left on the team, saying that there was a group that had stayed," she noted in the third episode. Hurtado had blocked all the coaches and left the communication groups, so she didn't know if they tried to contact her.
The outcome had a bittersweet and almost comedic touch: "The coaches kept the boxes of cigars we left behind, and the girls divided up the clothes, the kimonos, and other things. They did well," he recalled with laughter.
Hurtado was the first of five Cuban judokas who defected during that tour in France, along with Vanesa Godínez, Blanca Elena Torres, Lutmary García, and Santa Virgen Romero.
That year, more than 100 Cuban athletes left their delegations in various countries, in an exodus that included boxing, baseball, karate, rowing, and hockey, among other sports.
"I believe this story has no end. It wasn't easy," concluded Hurtado, who plans to continue publishing new episodes of his narrative. "I swear I'm only telling the truth," he assured.
Filed under: