Cuban volleyball players Roberlandy Simón and Roamy Alonso arrive in La Habana

May 17, 2020

Cuban volleyball players Roberlandy Simón and Roamy Alonso arrived in Havana last night, coming from Italy, on a humanitarian flight that brought around 35 people stranded in Italian territory due to COVID-19 to the largest of the Antilles, after completing their isolation period.

The outstanding Simón, contracted by Lube Civitanova, and young talent Roamy, who played this season with Ravenne and signed for next season with Chaumont in France, had been isolated since April 8, the date when the Italian Federation announced the sudden cancellation of the season, according to Radio Habana Cuba (RHC) reported today.

We are very happy to be home again. Now we will be isolated for a few days complying with health measures until we can reunite with family, Simón said to RHC, shortly after arriving at the José Martí air terminal.

With the arrival of Simón and Roamy, only Miguel Ángel López remains to return to Cuba, who has been isolating in Argentina for several weeks, where he has been one of the stars of the league in the last two seasons.

Recently Simón reaffirmed his commitment to continue supporting the Cuban team with an eye toward qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Although Simón sees his arrival at the Paris event as difficult, he will continue alongside the Cubans, with the objective of securing the Olympic ticket for 2024.

In statements to the specialized Argentine portal Somos Vóley, the outstanding blocker and one of the best centers in the world declared: I am still there with them, I try to lend them a hand and I hope that in the future they qualify for the Olympic Games.

He opined that what Cuba lacks is work experience, how to integrate into modern volleyball, he emphasized and said that he helps by explaining how to plan and how to do "things that are missing."

Simón referred to the talented generation of Cuban players, among them Marlon Yant (Lube), Miguel Angel López (Sada Cruzeiro), Osniel Melgarejo (Bolívar), Alonso (Chaumont) and Miguel David Gutiérrez, for which reason he sees an encouraging future.

He recalled that his return to the national team after a decade away was "something beautiful" despite not having achieved the objective of qualifying for Tokyo 2020, now 2021, since players he did not know welcomed him as if he were "one of them."