San Salvador, December 5 (PL) - Cuban Taimara Oropesa aspires to become the first badminton player from her country to reach the Olympic Games in this sport, in Paris 2024.

Speaking to Prensa Latina after participating in the V El Salvador International Challenge 2023 of badminton, the athlete said that her main aspiration at present is to continue training to obtain good results and be among the top 100 in the world ranking of this discipline in the next competitions.

Central American silver medalist in San Salvador and bronze medalist in the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile, where she defeated Mexico's Ana Mara Gaitan, her tormentor in San Salvador, Oropesa radiates confidence in achieving good results in the next competitions in which she participates in order to get an Olympic ticket.

Currently ranked among the 150 competitors in the world, she aspires to advance to the select group of the top 100 from where 38 athletes qualify directly to Paris and those who are chosen in the so-called "Wildcard" that will grant several places.

"My next aspiration is to be able to reach the 2024 Paris Olympiad which would be a great achievement for Cuban Badminton since never before a woman from our island reached that competitive place. For that we are competing to achieve more points for the ranking," she said.

At the moment among my main rivals in the Pan American area is the player from Mexico, Ana Mara Gaitan, those of Canada, the United States and Brazil, three countries with great potential in this sport, that would be the main obstacles to advance, she said.

Native of the eastern province of Holguin, she trains in the west of the country, in Pinar del Rio, and in the EIDE Holguin, which for the athlete is a great challenge.

In this reporter is still alive the memory of the "epic and dramatic" final during the XXIV Central Caribbean Games where the young girl faced for the gold against the experienced Mexican Gaitan in a match where she fought every time and lost in a match where, according to her coaches, she was affected by the lack of international exposure and training.

Oropesa expressed determination and firmness when she told this journalist that she aspires to reach the Olympics and place Cuban Badminton on high with the shuttlecock always in the court of her opponents.