CAMAGÜEY.— Cuba’s Olympic champion in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and two-time world champion, Ismael Borrero, just recently joined the national pre-selection Greco-Roman wrestling team, which is training in sports facilities here.
Raul Trujillo Diaz, head of coaching staff, explained that the brief delay in Borrero’s arrival came as a result of the medical follow-up attention the athlete required after being discharged from the hospital following an unexpected bout with the new coronavirus. Back on the mat at Rafael Fortún Chacón Sports Palace, in this city, the 28 year old Santiago native spoke with Granma about his preparation for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
-How do you feel after having survived the COVID-19 scare?
-I'm in perfect physical and mental condition. The fact that I'm training here in Camagüey, like the rest of my teammates, is proof enough.
-Your 67-kilogram division was the first to qualify for Tokyo...
-That took place in September of 2019, at the World Championship in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, where only the first two wrestlers in each category qualified, so nothing could go wrong.
We were well prepared, the whole team did their part and the result was achieved. You can imagine how complicated the road to gold was, I had to defeat six rivals in a row, three world champions, like German Frank Staebler, South Korean Hae-Soon Ryu and Russia’s Artiom Surkov.
-Do you consider Surkov your principal opponent in Tokyo?
-Today, he is one of the best. He was the 2018 World Champion in Budapest. He was an opponent I had never faced before and I knew it would be difficult. The following year, in Kazakhstan, I beat him in a close fight (3-1) in the title fight. The 67 kilograms is a division in which, worldwide, excellent athletes abound, all are careful and the only way to defeat them is to train really rigorously.
