For Joanna Rodriguez, a new rule change by the Cuban specialists to at long last permit ladies to contend in boxing couldn't come soon enough.
Currently in her 30s, there was simply no time left for her shot at an Olympic or world boxing title.
Functioning as a bouncer at a bar around evening time, she believed she was being compelled to pick either her donning vocation and putting food on the table.
Presently however, as the ladies' driving heavyweight in Cuba, Joanna trusts her name could one day sit close by those of Cuban boxing greats like Felix Savon or Teofilo Stevenson.
This (new rule) will make a huge difference," expresses Joanna after a tiring instructional course in a shabby rec center in Focal Havana.
It might move the perspective since there is machismo among all kinds of people here."
Joanna ought to before long get the potential chance to demonstrate her backbone on the global stage.
Be that as it may, for the lady she calls the trailblazer of ladies' confining Cuba - her coach, Namibia Flores.
The choice by the Cuban government came 10 years past the point of no return.