# Daniela Fonseca among the youngest members of the Cuban delegation to the Tokyo Olympics

**Date:** 07/19/2021

Knowing she is the second youngest athlete in Cuba's Olympic delegation in Tokyo 2020, rather than being a drawback, proves today to be an invaluable asset for table tennis player Daniela Fonseca.

At 18 years and 11 months old, Fonseca does not want her name to go unnoticed and speaks, with visible eagerness, of doing battle racket in hand, and that hunger for victory suggests a powerful time bomb that no one knows when it will explode.

A frenzy we witnessed for the first time in the Buenos Aires qualifier in Argentina, when she obtained in March the classification point: she dropped her racket in the best style of the baseball 'bat flip' and the contracted muscles of her face showed her character.

In a discipline dominated by Asian players, the Caribbean athlete spoke of struggle in her dialogue with Prensa Latina: I'm going to give everything, to make my best effort, regardless of the result, what cannot be lacking is my greatest effort.

Fonseca will once again place Cuba in the Olympic arena of women's tennis and will also seek to obtain the first victory for women, something that neither Maricel Ramírez (singles-doubles) nor Leticia Suárez (doubles) achieved in Sydney 2000.

It would be something historic for all the sacrifice, the things we have achieved, the difficulties of the pandemic. Something like this will teach us that nothing is impossible, she said in her exclusive statements.

The largest of the Antilles barely possesses the success achieved in Rio de Janeiro 2016, by singles player Andy Pereira, a performance that the young woman also aspires to surpass with her partner Jorge Moisés Campos in the mixed doubles program.

I do not underestimate anyone, but when I step up to the table I am a different person. I believe in myself, in an inner self that drives me to give everything, to not fall into despair even when I'm behind on the scoreboard, she affirmed.

That self-pride comes from her routine on competition day: In front of the mirror I exhort myself to give everything, to concentrate, to trust in every moment… to win, because giving up is never an option, she recounted with a smile on her lips.

This is how a girl acts who defines herself as simple and humble, understands that success only comes through effort and sacrifice, and thinks of her family and friends in both victory and defeat.

And it is no wonder, because when she was born the doctors gave her up for dead. 'I was born at six months, my mom almost died during childbirth and from that very beginning I demonstrated my willpower,' she recalled as someone who firmly believes in her words.

It was precisely that story, that romantic act of survival, that was the first thing that came to her mind that day on Argentine soil, when she achieved a historic point to place her land, Cuba, on the world map of table tennis under the flag of the interlocked rings.

It was a unique experience, a feeling that I don't think I will feel again, she remembered with a less steady voice and eyes ready to shed tears caused by happiness.