María Caridad Colón: "I Won Again, Like in the Moscow 1980 Olympic Games"

July 20, 2020

"I felt the same nerves as when I received the gold medal at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. One moment reminded me of the other. I went back 40 years to the throwing area to, on the first attempt, release the javelin over 68.40 meters. I think I won the competition again," confesses  María Caridad Colón, after being selected this Friday as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), with 88 votes in favor of her nomination.

"It is a very important event for my career, which recognizes my trajectory and sacrifice in sports."

 It has the same magnitude as that title that made me the first Latin American woman to achieve Olympic glory.

"Many people have already congratulated me," she comments optimistically. The first ones, of course, were the president of the Cuban Olympic Committee (COC) Roberto León Richards and vice president Ruperto Herrera, who along with the sports press gave me the news this morning at the COC headquarters."

The 62-year-old from Baracoa, as accurate in throws as in judgment, assures that she has never set out to break rules, but the twists of fate and the whims of sport have made her set standards:

"When I was the first Latin American woman to obtain an Olympic gold. I didn't set out to do it. My goal was to achieve a medal and then go for the gold. After I obtained it, that's when I found out about that achievement, and now in this case, the selection didn't catch me by surprise because I knew I was nominated, but I never imagined being in the IOC," she said with a laugh.

"Knowing that I am the first Cuban woman to hold this position imposes new challenges on me. The most important thing is that if they have trusted me to take on this task, I will do my very best for sports as I have done until today," she concluded.