Yarisleidis is Going Hard

What canoeist Yarisleidis Cirilo brought to me when I spoke with her was not a child’s play, it was evident that she was serious about it when she told me her desire to leave a mark on Cuban sports, and she is doing it.

The crown that she just won in the C-1 at 200 meters at the World Championships in Duisburg (Germany) makes it clear that she must be counted on when distributing the medals in 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

Her excitement for reaching the top of the effort made in recent years was so great that she fell off her boat after crossing the finish line, but luckily she was no longer that girl who only rowed near the shoreline in her home land of Guantánamo because she did not know how to swim and was terrified of water.

The Spanish Antia Jacome and the Chinese Wenjun Lin, silver and bronze medalists, will undoubtedly be two of her main rivals in Paris, where Cuba could stay on the podium that brilliantly attained in Tokyo 2020, and for the first time in history thanks to a woman.

The current Olympic champion, the North American Nevin Harrison, also participated in the German competition, another great contender to the podium one year from now.

Row after row, medal after medal, she is getting closer to her dream of reaching a metal in the upcoming event in Paris, because although she had two titles in World Cups, a World Cup is different, and more so this one, where all the elite on the planet because the first tickets for Paris 2024 were awarded: 158 in total among all modalities of both sexes.

It didn't matter that she suddenly broke her relationship with Katherin Nuevo in the two-seater canoe; With very little time to reach her ideal rapport with her new partner, Yinnoly López, she finished sixth in the final of the C-2 500-meter test, also classifying for the Olympic Games.

Along with Nuevo, she won gold in the C-2 at 200 meters at the World Championships held last year in Halifax, Canada, to which she added titles in the same distance (non-Olympic) at the World Cups in Racice, Czech Republic, and Poznan, Poland.

She now has to start from scratch with a 17-year-old girl behind her who faced international competition for the first time, but her future looks bright.

The Santiago 2023 Pan American Games will be a good time to assess the progression of this new duo, who came together just two months ago.

Before beginning 2022, very few believed that she could end up as the Best Female Athlete of the season in Cuba, and now she strongly aims to repeat that award.

At age 21, she is ready to take on the world, and the world knows that she is going hard.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff