Yulimar Rojas says goodbye to the Olympics due to injury

At the least opportune moments, the worst news in an athlete’s career often happens. The months leading up to the Olympic Games tend to be inopportune for some of them. The main reason, injuries. However, these types of incidents, to which all athletes are exposed, reach even more dramatic tones, and are magnified if they affect one of the great world figures. The misfortune this time fell to Yulimar Rojas, one of the greatest figures in athletics, who suffered an injury less than four months before Paris 2024 begins.

My heart is broken and I feel so sad that I want to apologize for not being able to represent you in Paris 2024Rojas said in a statement released on social networks and addressed to his native Venezuela.

The 28-year-old athlete explained that the ailment began while training: “When I received a jump, I had intense pain that resulted in an injury to the Achilles tendon.

They have been very complex hours in which I have questioned myself and analyzed why this happenedreflected the multiple world champion, who underwent surgery on Thursday in Madrid.

Rojas’ loss is sensitive for the Venezuelan delegation because she is their best Olympic athlete in recent years.

Rojas seemed invincible heading into the Olympic Games, but an injury forces her to abdicate. With no rivals to overshadow her, she gives in to an unexpected adversary.

He was coming off a dominant 2023, in which he won a fourth world outdoor championship and a third Diamond League title.

She had the best world record of 2023, 15.35 meters, very far from her competitors.

The Venezuelan had set herself an extra challenge: competing in Paris 2024 in an additional test to the triple jump, the long jump.

Today I feel very emotionally affected by not being able to represent them, the desire to defend my Olympic title excited me enormously; but I have to stop, understand this, recover and come back with great strength to continuesaid the woman from Caracas, considered the queen of the triple jump.

The fans in Paris will miss seeing one of the greatest references in the discipline. Although athletics is one of the most requested events in terms of tickets sold, Yulimar was part of the mechanism by which fans bought a seat.

The visual spectacle offered by the South American was undeniable. Watching it fly across the battlefield is captivating. This time she was preparing to spray the same brand of hers (15.74). She sought to reach 16 meters, an unreasonable figure for others, not for her.

Impudence in the air

Rojas’ achievements are completely proportional to the audacity of his jumps. In her career, she has been a gold medalist (Tokyo 2020) and a bronze medalist (Rio 2016), she is also a quadruple world champion in the specialty, as well as a three-time global champion in indoor competitions.

All my love, solidarity and support for our Olympic, world, universal champion and the only queen of the triple jumpsaid President Nicolás Maduro. We love you and we know of your commitment and discipline, you are a warrior of life.

Rojas is on the list of four Venezuelan athletes who have won a gold medal. The boxer Francisco Rodríguez (Mexico 1968), the taekwondoin Arlindo Gouveia (Barcelona 1992) and the fencer Rubén Limardo (London 2012) are part of this exclusive club.

From a very humble family, Yulimar stood out since she was little in several sports; among them: basketball, softball, soccer.

But the first great love of Rojas, who grew to be 1.92 meters tall, was volleyball; an athletics coach, Jesús Velásquez, managed to recruit her. And in 2012, she was amazed by Limardo’s Olympic gold and decided to take the sport more seriously. Her life changed definitively in 2015, when Facebook proposed her as a amigo to Iván Pedroso, the Cuban multi-time long jump champion.

She sent him a message telling him that he was her idol and the Cuban star, to her surprise, responded that he had been following her for a long time and that he wanted to work with her in Spain, where she signed with the athletics section of FC Barcelona.

With information from Ap and Afp