Cuban triple jumper Jordan Díaz will compete in Paris 2024 wearing a Spanish jersey

November 26, 2022

Cuban-born Spanish national Jordan Díaz could represent his adopted country at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, according to an announcement made this Wednesday by the Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA).

"The World Athletics nationality review panel has communicated to the Spanish Athletics Federation that Jordan Díaz will be eligible as of June 28, 2024," the RFEA stated through social media.

"Today is a very happy day in my life because World Athletics has already informed me that as of June 28, 2024 I will be able to fulfill my dream of representing Spain in International Championships and it will coincide with the greatest, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Every training session and workout will be even more exciting, because we have already started the countdown to that long-awaited day," wrote the 21-year-old athlete on his Instagram profile.

Díaz holds Spain's national record in the discipline with a jump of 17.87m, achieved in Nerja (Málaga), last June. In that competition he became the Spanish champion in triple jump and shattered the 17.77m mark, which he had set two weeks earlier in La Nucía (Alicante), in the clubs league final.

Either of those jumps would have won Díaz the Olympic title, as they exceeded the 17.71 m with which his compatriot Pedro Pablo Pichardo crowned himself at Tokyo 2020, who competes under the Portuguese flag. However, Díaz did not attend that summer event, despite being qualified and being a medal contender, as he possesses the best mark of all time for under-18 athletes, with 17.30 meters, which he achieved at the World Championship in Nairobi 2017.

In 2018 he became champion of the Youth Olympic Games, and in the senior category he obtained the silver medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games. Also at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games he won a silver medal, after jumping 17.38 meters.

Weeks before the start of the multisport event in the Japanese capital, Jordan Díaz abandoned an official Cuban delegation in Spain. His decision meant renouncing the Olympic dream and not being able to enter Cuba for at least eight years, a punishment imposed by the regime on athletes and professionals from other fields who escape from delegations or "missions" abroad.

Díaz obtained Spanish nationality by naturalization letter last February, but World Athletics requires three years without competing on behalf of the new country, since the last competition with the previous federation.

For that reason, Díaz was not at the World Championships in Eugene, USA, where his compatriot nationalized Portuguese Pichardo crowned himself. At that tournament, Cuba's delegation finished without medals for the first time in this type of event.

Although Díaz stayed in Spain in 2021, the idea had formed in his head three years earlier, when he set the under-18 record in Kenya.