[FRA – Cet article est une traduction en anglais d’une brève publiée en février 2015 sur le site Internet du bimestriel français L’Esprit du judo. Revenue sur le circuit international début 2022 après une éclipse de près de huit années, la -48 kg désormais âgée de 35 ans, qui combat à présent sous les couleurs des États-Unis, a remporté le 17 octobre 2025 à Guadalajara (Mexique) son premier Grand Prix depuis celui de La Havane (Cuba) en… juin 2014.
ENG – This article is an English translation of a news published in February 2015 on the website of the French bimonthly magazine L’Esprit du judo. Back on the international tour in early 2022 after an eclipse of nearly eight years, the U48kg judoka now aged 35, who now competes under the colors of the United States, won on October 17, 2025 in Guadalajara (Mexico) her first Grand Prix since the one in Havana (Cuba) in… June 2014.]
Eleven years before her title on October 17, 2025 at the Guadalajara Grand Prix under the colors of the USA, the woman who was at the time a brand-new Cuban World medalist had made the painful choice of exile.- JudoAKDReplay#009.
The rumor had been going around for a few weeks. It was confirmed to us by several sources during these national championship days in Cuba. María Celia Laborde, third at the last World Championships in the U48kg category, took off last fall along with her male compatriots Leonardo Meriño (U55kg) and Javier Peña, third at the 2014 Pan American Championships and notable competitor in the U60kg category last August in Chelyabinsk. The triple defection apparently occurred at the end of November in Mexico, the day after the Central American and Caribbean Games in Veracruz where the three judoka had won gold in their respective categories.
By choosing exile, the woman who was World #4 last September joins at age 24 the trajectory of her elder Danieska Carrión, World medalist in U48kg in 2001 and 2003 then missing from Western radars until 2007 and a report in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was spotted coaching a young US judo prospect named Ronda Rousey [cf. EDJ12]. Above all, she joins her namesake Yurisel Laborde, 2005 and 2007 World champion in U78kg, who vanished into thin air at age 28 on May 12, 2008, the day after a victory at the Pan American Championships in Miami and three months away from an Olympic title that was within her reach. Now a mother of two children, the former champion, today 35 years old, had granted us at the time a two-part interview [cf. EDJ15] of which we reproduce here the epilogue.
EPILOGUE – Through four emails dated May 13, 22 and 23 and June 18, 2008, Yurisel Laborde gave signs of life again. While she refuses to lift the veil on the reasons for her action, she nonetheless fully measures its short and medium-term impact. Excerpts from two of her emails: « For the moment I would tell you that I’m doing well. A bit sad but it will pass. As you can see I can no longer participate in what’s most beautiful about sport and that’s what makes me suffer the most… But no one can understand why I did it. I just want you to know that it has nothing to do with politics… My objective today is to become a great coach. I want to continue in judo, and if not as a competitor, it will be as a coach… I miss my partners on the Cuban national team very much, at least as much as competition… I think I’m experiencing a second birth. Everything here is very different from what I knew in Cuba, but no matter, I accept my decision. Every person dreams of a better future, and that’s also my case. I know that this future would have been different if I had stayed in Cuba. » – Anthony Diao, February 2015-October 2025. Opening picture: ©JudoAKD.
More Replays in English:
- JudoAKDReplay#001 – Pawel Nastula – The Leftover (2017)
- JudoAKDReplay#002 – Gévrise Emane – Turn Lead into Bronze (2020)
- JudoAKDReplay#003 – Lukas Krpalek – The Best Years of a Life (2019)
- JudoAKDReplay#004 – How Did Ezio Become Gamba? (2015)
- JudoAKDReplay#005 – What’s up… Dimitri Dragin? (2016)
- JudoAKDReplay#006 – Travis Stevens – « People forget about medals, only fighters remain » (2016)
- JudoAKDReplay#007 – Sit and Talk with Tina Trstenjak and Clarisse Agbégnénou (2017)
- JudoAKDReplay#008 – A Summer with Marti Malloy (2014)
More articles in English:
- JudoAKD#001 – Loïc Pietri – Pardon His French
- JudoAKD#002 – Emmanuelle Payet – This Island Within Herself
- JudoAKD#003 – Laure-Cathy Valente – Lyon, Third Generation
- JudoAKD#004 – Back to Celje
- JudoAKD#005 – Kevin Cao – Where Silences Have the Floor
- JudoAKD#006 – Frédéric Lecanu – Voice on Way
- JudoAKD#008 – Annett Böhm – Life is Lives
- JudoAKD#009 – Abderahmane Diao – Infinity of Destinies
- JudoAKD#010 – Paco Lozano – Eye of the Fighters
- JudoAKD#011 – Hans Van Essen – Mister JudoInside
- JudoAKD#021 – Benjamin Axus – Still Standing
- JudoAKD#022 – Romain Valadier-Picard – The Fire Next Time
- JudoAKD#023 – Andreea Chitu – She Remembers
- JudoAKD#024 – Malin Wilson – Come. See. Conquer.
- JudoAKD#025 – Antoine Valois-Fortier – The Constant Gardener
- JudoAKD#026 – Amandine Buchard – Status and Liberty
- JudoAKD#027 – Norbert Littkopf (1944-2024), by Annett Boehm
- JudoAKD#028 – Raffaele Toniolo – Bardonecchia, with Family
- JudoAKD#029 – Riner, Krpalek, Tasoev – More than Three Men
- JudoAKD#030 – Christa Deguchi and Kyle Reyes – A Thin Red and White Line
- JudoAKD#031 – Jimmy Pedro – United State of Mind
- JudoAKD#032 – Christophe Massina – Twenty Years Later
- JudoAKD#033 – Teddy Riner/Valentin Houinato – Two Dojos, Two Moods
- JudoAKD#034 – Anne-Fatoumata M’Baïro – Of Time and a Lifetime
- JudoAKD#035 – Nigel Donohue – « Your Time is Your Greatest Asset »
- JudoAKD#036 – Ahcène Goudjil – In the Beginning was Teaching
- JudoAKD#037 – Toma Nikiforov – The Kalashnikiforov Years
- JudoAKD#038 – Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard – The Rank of Big Sister
- JudoAKD#039 – Vitalie Gligor – « The Road Takes the One Who Walks »
- JudoAKD#040 – Joan-Benjamin Gaba and Inal Tasoev – Mindset Matters
- JudoAKD#041 – Pierre Neyra – About a Corner of France and Judo as It Is Taught There
- JudoAKD#042 – Theódoros Tselídis – Between Greater Caucasus and Aegean Sea
And also :
JudoAKD – Instagram – X (Twitter).
