In an Olympic Games where mental health has been a central issue due to the problems faced by American gymnast Simone Biles, which also affected Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, another athlete acknowledged that he is not having a good time, although his story is beyond imagination.
He smoked marijuana at the gates of a doping control in Cali, in a qualifying tournament for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. A month later, in June, he was notified of his positive and only a successful appeal allowed him to compete in Tokyo, as his punishment culminated three days before the day of his test.
“Mano, just one word: crap. My performance was shit.” With his thick Cuban accent, Chilean weightlifter Arley Mendez, 27, evidenced his frustration, after a lousy performance marked by injuries in the -81kg weightlifting category of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics weightlifting, in which he finished last.
Frustrating, but far from being a surprise.
In tears, one of the 22 Cuban-born athletes competing for another country in these Games, added that he wants to quit competitions after a series of physical and mental problems: “I’m retiring, I don’t want to lift weights anymore. The sport is hurting me, I am suffering a lot with pain, depressions... I can’t take it anymore. I hope you understand me. I was going to retire a long time ago, but you know what happens: I have a family and I have to feed my family”.
Vulnerable, the Chilean said he consumed cannabis on purpose, evidence of his mental health problems. “In Cali I was disappointed, and I took the marijuana.”
“What athlete does that 48 hours before his turn to measure?” asks Mendez rhetorically. And he answers himself: “I did it on purpose to go to hell. But it hurts me: this is my life”.
At the age of 19, Méndez arrived in Chile to compete with the Cuban delegation in the Pan American Youth Championships. His plan was to escape the Cuban regime to earn more money and help his family.
After winning the competition, with the help of a local weightlifting friend, he decided to leave his team and defect. He remained illegal in Chile, as his passport would be taken by his coach at the time. Thus, without papers, he had to make do as best he could to survive, working in gyms in Santiago de Chile with a salary of $300 a month.
The Chilean state granted him citizenship, he was three-time world champion in Turkmenistan in 2017 and became one of the Chilean hopes to win a medal in Tokyo 2020. Today he lives his mourning, after an Olympic Games that have served more than one athlete to publicly recognize that their demons consume them.
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