Ana Laura Portuondo Isasi’s Olympic participation is probably the most unlikely of the lot. Having stopped judo for more than six years, she returned to competition less than a year ago. In a heart-to-heart interview, she wants to show how a chance can lead to great things.
She represents the Boucherville Judo Club.
Ana Laura Portuondo Isasi was aiming for the Rio Games in 2016. Then the Tokyo Games in 2020. Two missed opportunities. The Paris Games in 2024? She wasn’t even thinking about it a year ago. Worse still, she had stopped high-level competition a long time ago. But convinced by her sister Adriana, she reconnected with her passion in October 2023, and nine months later, she will be at her first Olympic Games, to her great joy.
It was in her training club, the Boucherville judo club, that Ana Laura Portuondo Isasi met with us. During a generous interview, she looks back on her journey, her struggles and the luck she had in order to secure a place at the Games.
“It’s crazy how great things can be done just by having an opportunity,” she says.
Her opportunity? The team event in judo.
Because when she returned to high-level competition in October, she didn’t have the points to qualify individually for the Games. However, Canada had a nearly full team to compete in the team event. It was just one fighter short in one category.
“I was lucky. Nothing guarantees that in the next cycle, there will be a full team. At the Tokyo Games, we didn’t do the team component,” she recalls.
By being in the team event, the judoka automatically qualifies for the individual event.
Luck after bad luck
The 28-year-old athlete is deeply grateful for this opportunity, even though the Paris Games were not supposed to be her first.
“Everything was going well in 2015, I was in the best physical shape. I did the Canadian championships, it’s my 6th Canadian champion title, but during this event, I tested positive for salbutamol,” she recalls.
This was followed by a two-year suspension, a rejected appeal, loss of funding as a carded athlete, loss of her student-athlete status, and a ban from training at a national center.
There was salbutamol in her asthma pump. “I am asthmatic, I have all my documents saying that I must take my pumps before physical effort to avoid asthma attacks. During this event, I did the same process as usual, but I tested positive,” she says.
The judoka describes this episode as the most difficult, the most traumatic of her life, the one she was unable to tell for a long time without crying. The one that made her unable to watch the Olympic Games afterwards.
The end and the return
After her suspension, Ana Laura Portuondo Isasi returned to competition. She felt that if she didn’t, she would be capitulating to her positive test.
“I didn’t dope, I’ll keep it up until death,” assures the athlete. READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>
Back on the mats in 2017, the goal was to qualify for Tokyo 2020. But during the world championships in Budapest in 2017, she suffered a concussion, she who has a history of doing so. Doctors advised her to stop all contact sports.
Which she would do for six years. The Olympic dream was for all intents and purposes over.
“I thought it was over, but my sister encouraged me. She said: ‘I feel so sad when I hear you talk about judo, because it’s bitter for you. Just try, you owe it to yourself for everything that happened to you,’” she emphasizes, knowing that there was also a slim possibility of qualifying through the team event.
Additionally, a return to competition offered him the chance to change the narrative, to “crush” the press articles about his suspension.
In mid-October 2023, the Laprairienne contacted high performance to see what she had to do to return to competition. She participated in three events before the end of the year and won all three.
“I still have asthma,” she recalls. But the asthma pump will remain safely stored as long as she competes.
An accomplishment, but not the last
Back on the international scene in early 2024, she took part in four competitions and notably won the silver medal at the Pan-American Championships, beating one of her idols, the Cuban Idalys Ortiz.
At the end of June, she was confirmed on the Olympic team.
“I want to fight, I want to give a good show. I want to be proud when I finish this experience.”
– Ana Laura Portuondo Isasi, about the Paris Games
“It’s like it rekindled a certain flame, a desire, a passion that I thought was lost. So for me, just to go there, it’s my medal. I’m very grateful, but also happy to have given myself the chance to try it again,” says the judoka.
She considers her qualification to be the greatest achievement of her life. So, will she go to Paris with a sense of duty already accomplished? Not exactly.
“I want a medal! I know it seems crazy to some people, but I believe in it, I think I can win a medal, that I can perform. And I say this with all humility. I no longer have the same skills as when I was 18, my body reacts differently, my recovery is no longer the same. Many factors have changed. On the other hand, I believe in it!” says Ana Laura Portuondo Isasi confidently.
And so, on August 2, she will tread the carpets of Paris with her head held high, ready to seize her chance.
2024-07-26 22:17:07
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