As far back as Anisley Garcia Navarro can remember, she’s been called “Tuti,” and as far back as she can remember, she’s wanted dive for Cuba in the Olympics.
But she never expected to hear that she made her first Olympic team at the Milan airport, en route to a Grand Prix event in Bolzano, Italy.
“I was passing through immigration,” she recalled. “A coach showed me a text saying I made it.” She immediately froze. “Five minutes later,” she said, “I was like, ‘Okay, I have to call my mom!’”
Eight months ago, at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Garcia Navarro became the first Cuban diver in history to qualify for the semifinals in both the individual 3m and 10m events at a single Games. She placed 15th on springboard, and 16th on the platform.
And while Paris marked her Olympic debut, it wasn’t her first time competing on a large global stage. She had already represented Cuba at four senior world championships, dating back to 2019. Now 23, she still has yet to make a world or Olympic final.
To that end, she applied for (and was accepted into) the World Aquatics Scholarship Programme and has been training in Toronto, Canada, since September 2024 under the guidance of four-time Olympian (and fellow Cuba native) Jose Guerra.
“She’s very focused on her goals,” Guerra said, “very disciplined. She doesn’t complain. She doesn’t miss a practice. Her goal is very clear in front of her. She knows what her job is. Even if it’s hard, she goes for it. It’s refreshing.”
But her career hasn’t exactly been linear.
Garcia Navarro started diving at age 4, when she trailed one of her two older sisters to the pool in Havana where her mother worked as the manager. Right away, she was dubbed her “Tuti” by her first coach, Maria Elena Carmuza. It’s a term of endearment that, Guerra surmised, might have been easier to remember than a name.
At first, diving was like a game for Tuti – a game that she always seemed to be winning.
At age 6, in the Pioneer Games (a Cuban competition for youth) Garcia Navarro was beating divers who were as old as 8.
Also, when she was 6, she saw the 2008 Beijing Olympics on television.
“I had an epiphany,” she said. “I want to go there.” From then on, she took the sport more seriously and professionally.
“I had an epiphany. I want to go there.”
Quickly, she started capturing a series of national age-group titles on 1m, 3m, and even higher towers.
Those were happy times. She said she loved training at the outdoor pool in Havana which had been home to Cuba’s national team for many years.
“First of all, the sun makes everything happier,” she explained. But also, it was a multi-sport facility and she found it inspiring to be around athletes from other sports like volleyball and basketball.
At 10, she was selected for Cuba’s junior national team, based in Matanzas, and started training under Olympian Jorge Betancourt. (At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Betancourt placed fourth in 3m synchro with Erick Fornaris, which is Cuba’s best Olympic diving result to date.)
At 12, she started training with Lino Socorro, who had coached both Betancourt and Guerra en route to the Olympics.
At age 15 or 16, she began training with her current coach (Guerra) in Cuba.
Then, at the 2018 Central American Games in Barranquilla, Colombia, at 16, Garcia Navarro won gold on the 10m tower, just like her first coach had done 25 years earlier, the one who called her “Tuti” – and which no Cuban girl had done in the interim. It was a full-circle moment.
In 2019, she made her first senior world championship team, under Guerra’s guidance. But when Guerra left Cuba in 2022, Yudeika Aleman took over the coaching reins.
Clearly, she’s had a lot of success, under lot of advisors.
Through it all, Garcia Navarro thinks her greatest strength was, simply, her strength.
“When I was a kid,” she explained, “I felt I was very, very strong and very, very healthy. Now, it’s the same. I feel very strong every time I go to practice – physically and mentally, too, because competition [brings a lot of] pressure, and you have to [be able to] say, ‘I can do it.’”
At this point, her dive lists are pretty much set.
“My difficulty is where I want it for 10m,” she said. She already has a 626C on her list (an armstand back triple with 3.3 DD) and a 207C (back 3½, also with 3.3 DD).
In 3m, she is working on 107B (a forward 3½ pike with a 3.1 DD) but said it’s not ready for competition yet.
Her favorite dive, she said, “depends on the day,” adding that her aim now is “just to improve every dive in every competition.”
So as she looks ahead to this summer (striving to qualify for her sixth World Championships, in Singapore) and hopefully return to the Olympics in 2028 Los Angeles, Garcia Navarro will continue to brave the cold Canadian weather, share a house with other World Aquatics Scholarship recipients (including divers from Sri Lanka, Czechia, and the Dominican Republic), and take online university studies in physical education.
Humble, driven, and (according to Guerra) super-competitive, Garcia Navarro is also grateful.
“I want to say a big thank you to World Aquatics for this opportunity – for everyone, but especially me,” she said. “I can tell I’m progressing a lot. I’m very happy.”