Lázaro Tolón, Yunia Milanés, Yordankis Méndez and Lismary González share an apartment; Yadira Guillén, Helec Carta and Jennifer Martínez were hired by the Old Reds club.
14ymedio, Havana, 23 June 2024 — A precarious salary on the Island “that bought practically nothing, without shoes or a uniform to train,” were part of the reasons why hockey player Lázaro Tolón, 27, fled the official delegation of Cuba on May 17, 2023, in the middle of the Pan American Games in Chile. The shortages at home were drowning him. “I struggled to get to the national team, and once I arrived, they didn’t give me what I deserve. All the sacrifice I had made wasn’t worth it. That’s why I decided to leave the country,” the Cuban athlete tells the Chilean newspaper The Clinic.
Toulon and eight other Cuban athletes are waiting for a response to their requests for refuge in the country, since they fled their respective delegations in May 2023. At this time they have temporary residence visas, which are updated every eight months.
Tolón and eight other Cuban athletes are waiting for a response to their requests for refuge in the South American country
The first months of Toulon in Chile led him to work as a tinsmith, bricklayer and guard in a car workshop. He currently has three jobs, the first in a supermarket, in addition to being a trainer in the municipal gym of Lo Barnechea and a hockey coach at the Universidad Católica. There is also Yordankis