Refugee athlete Ramiro Mora finishes seventh in men’s 102 kg weightlifting at Paris 2024 Olympics
On the eve of his Olympic debut, Ramiro Mora took time away from the Village at Paris 2024 to remember the woman who urged him to keep up weightlifting.
“I just want to tell you mom that I am fulfilling the dream,” Mora’s post on Instagram started. “I told you I would go to an Olympics and here I am.”
In Mora’s own words, his mother is now watching “from heaven together with dad”, but she remains by his side as his “inspiration”.
“I love you mom, I need you, but I know you are always by my side guiding me on the best path,” he added.
And on Saturday (10 August), Mora did his mother proud, with the British champion representing the Refugee Olympic Team when placing a remarkable seventh in the men’s 102kg weightlifting at Paris 2024.
He was right to smile - his beam clear for the whole of the South Paris Arena to see.
Mora’s story is unique in the fact he moved to England from his native Cuba to continue working at the circus, and he eventually resumed weightlifting thanks to a close friend, and also a British coach who invited him to train at the London Olympic Weightlifting Academy (LOWA).
“When I started in the circus, I was not thinking about training,” Mora told Olympics.com ahead of Paris 2024. “But when I came here, it opened my eyes, and a friend in Italy asked me, ‘Bro, why aren’t you training again? In Cuba you were such a good athlete.’
“I said, ‘Look, I am very good but in the circus I can help my family… Maybe next week I try.’ So I went to the gym and I tried 140kg snatch and I said, ‘Wow, I’m going back training.’”
Mora then promised his coach he would thrive on the tournament circuit, and backed that up in style, holding British records in the 89kg and 96kg categories, and also winning the British Championships in 2022 and 2023 when representing LOWA.
He then became the 102kg national champion in 2024, and while he dreams of representing Great Britain at LA 2028, here in Paris he was representing 100 million refugees around the world.
Mora was one of 13 athletes in the men’s 102kg event, and in the snatch he managed to lift 161kg and then 166kg.
Come the clean and jerk, Mora moved briefly into first when managing 210kg on his third attempt, flashing a huge smile to great cheers from the crowd.
The combined score of 376 left Mora with a guaranteed spot in the top seven, and seventh proved to be where he finished, the 26-year-old proving he belongs on the world stage and then some.