Yurisel Laborde

Yurisel Laborde Duany ( born August 18, 1979 in Santiago de Cuba ) is a Cuban judoka and two-time world champion.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she won along with Lucia Morico of Italy the bronze medal in the judo competitions of women in the light heavyweight (weight class 78 kg ).

In the Judo World Championships in Munich in 2001 and the World Judo Championships 2003 in Osaka she won in this weight class, the Silver Medal, 2005 in Cairo and 2007 in Rio de Janeiro the gold medal. At the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo in 2003 she also won a silver medal. In 2007, she was awarded as the best athlete of her home province of Santiago de Cuba.

In May 2008, she applied for following their victory in the Pan American Judo Championships in Miami political asylum. It justified its decision in media interviews with their dissatisfaction with the Cuban sports system in which they no longer own after twelve years of successful high-performance sport in the national team than their medals. Although it was two-time world champion, she had neither a house can still get a car. Since they could not compete for Cuba and thus was initially automatically suspended from international competitions for another country, they were thus on their dream of Olympic gold in Beijing. At the time of her surprising resignation of a return to Cuba it was considered one of the biggest gold medal hopes of the Cuban Olympic team. Your coach accused her opinions to the international press of the "betrayal " because much had been invested in her career as a top athlete. In October 2011, it was reported, a sports journalist in Laborde's hometown of Santiago had been dismissed from his work on public radio since he was illegally remained in contact with her.

After initially for one year worked as a judo coach in Florida, she moved in 2009 to Puerto Rico, where she joined the police force. It belongs there at the Judo Association of Sports School of the City Carolina.