Maybe because he is tired of racing, we won’t see him at the start anymore. Maybe fighting against the hurdles bored him to stop. The suspicions of his retirement came true. After his worst year in the sport, as he described it in 2012, Dayron Robles left the top level competitions and made a whole in Cuban track and field and in the chest of many Cubans.
It is hard to believe, but it is true. And it is such strong blow…I don’t know!
It seems that Dayron doesn’t dream anymore of being the fastest mortal on the hurdles or, who knows, the glory he held is enough for him. It could be that the many injuries finally that plagued him after winning the Olympic title caught up with him, cut his breadth and his ambitions short. Or, perhaps, upset for the harsh critics in his worse times, he decided to leave the spotlight.
Guesses, just guesses. That’s all we have. There is only one truth, and no explanations. And it hurts, it hurts a lot.
Yes, because we always trusted his legs, in his “courage to train daily”, in his will to get up each morning and carve his path to return to the podium at World championships and Olympic Games. But this redemption will not happen.
We believed his words, those that back in August 2009 told us that “being an athlete in Cuba is pride, not pressure”, the same that confessed his being hurt “for the shame of saying goodbye to the Olympics without a medal”, or his affirmation in 2012 that “the desire to run, the challenge of the hurdles, will always be within me”. But the challenge doesn’t seduce him anymore.
The fact is that we always believed that Dayron was made of oak, even when he was disqualified in Daegu, even when the right femoral biceps betrayed him and forced him to leave the London final.
At 26, an age when traditionally the great hurdler specialists begin to have their best results, we wanted to see him once more like the bronze medalist in 2006 in Athens World Cup, runner-up in the indoor world championships that same year, Pan American champion in Rio 2007 and Guadalajara 2011, world champion in Doha 2010 and undisputed champion in Beijing 2008.
We wanted him focused on trying to be again the world record holder. We wanted to see him racing faster than that June 12, 2008, in Ostrava, faster than that 12.80 seconds by American Aries Merrit, the new record.
We wanted him, no. We still do. But Dayron Robles won’t want what we want anymore, at least not on the tracks. And his retirement delivered a blow to us that opened dark ditches in our souls where the hangover from what we have suffered in sports becomes stagnant.
Author
Rafael Arzuaga
