The finish line at the flatwater sprint canoeing course is set at 1,000 meters, but the athlete in lane three of the second heat has traveled a significantly greater distance to arrive here.
For those who closely followed the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Fernando Dayan Jorge Enriquez is a name that stands out. If you’re Cuban, you undoubtedly remember him. He earned the nation’s first gold medal in canoeing, competing alongside Serguey Torres in the men’s two-man 1,000m sprint.
This victory catapulted Jorge to national hero status. Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, personally congratulated them, and Granma, the official publication of Cuba’s Communist Party, published extensive articles heralding it as a “Cuban Feat” and an “Electrifying Victory.” He was honored as one of the athletes of the year in Cuba.
The race was thrilling. The Cuban duo found themselves behind China and Germany until the final moments when they surged ahead to seize first place. Torres, at 34, credited Dayan Jorge, who was just 22 at the time. “This young man inspired me to fight,” he remarked. “He placed his hand on my shoulder and urged me: ‘Come on, you can do it.’ He is destined to become one of the great athletes of Cuba and a superhero in the world of canoeing.”
There were plans in the press about forming a team around him for the upcoming Olympics in Paris and Los Angeles, including pairing him with another rising Cuban canoer, José Ramón Pelier Cordova. While Pelier Cordova made it to Paris, unfortunately, Dayan Jorge did not; he is competing as a member of the Olympic Refugee Team.
Discussing his situation is challenging for Dayan Jorge. Language barriers make it difficult, and he weighs his words carefully. He recounted how, upon returning to Cuba post-Olympics, the country was grappling with its worst economic crisis since the revolution, and he felt disillusioned by being used for public relations efforts for a struggling government.
“We had six months of vacation, and I lived like any other Cuban; I was no longer shielded by the sports bubble,” he shared in an interview. “They also wanted me to partake in the government’s charade, but I refused. That’s why I defected.”
Six months following the Tokyo Games, Dayan Jorge and the Cuban team journeyed to Mexico City for a three-week training camp. Amid the chaos of the airport, he quietly slipped away from his teammates and coaches and began his trek toward the US border.
The journey took him two weeks. He left his gold medal and everything else behind in Cuba, traveling incognito due to fears of being kidnapped for ransom by human smuggling gangs that might recognize him as an Olympic champion.
Ultimately, he reached the Rio Grande and swam across. Fit as he is, he admits it was a close call. Upon his initial arrival on US soil, he immediately heard a woman screaming in the river. She was clutching a rope, and her husband was trying to pull her to safety, but the strong current was pulling her away. Dayan Jorge courageously dove back in to rescue her. He affirmed this tale after racing with a simple, “yes, that’s true.”
Upon reaching the shore, Dayan Jorge was arrested and detained for two weeks by US authorities before being granted asylum. He ended up in Miami, where he began working as a plumber while training on the nearby canals. He is among nearly half a million Cubans who have undertaken similar journeys since the pandemic ended.
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He had no assurance of competing in Paris until he discovered in April that he had received an IOC refugee scholarship. “I am proud to represent over 100 million displaced individuals globally,” he expressed. “It is a tremendous honor to represent this flag.”
The consequences of his defection have been significant. Following his departure, Granma published a brief statement from the National Federation condemning him for “serious indiscipline that undermined years of intense work and the strategic development of the sport towards the Olympic cycles for Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028.” They accused him of “turning his back on his commitment to his sport and his people.” When I asked if his former friends and teammates have welcomed him here in Paris, he chuckled. “No.”
The Cuban Olympic Committee has lodged a complaint with the IOC regarding his participation, claiming he is not a genuine refugee, asserting he was never persecuted or forced to leave but made a choice to leave. They demanded his expulsion from the IOC, accusing him of making “disrespectful and false political statements against his country, people, and the sports movement that enabled him to achieve Olympic glory in Tokyo 2020.”
Despite not reaching the semi-finals here, Dayan Jorge is already envisioning his participation in Los Angeles four years from now. He is a person of pride and, as his friend and teammate Torres remarked when they clinched gold, “a very brave one” too.
