These 9 Latinas Competing at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Are Forging New Paths

This Venezuelan athlete refused to let the crisis in her home country stop her from going after her dreams. "Here I am, making love my fuel to go after my dreams. Those who know me know this sport is everything to me, and that in each stroke there is the essential, love, which is as invisible as true❤️," she wrote in Spanish on Instagram. Months ahead of the competition, she started a GoFundMe campaign to get the necessary funds to participate this year. And she made it! "I won't give up, just like Venezuelans are not giving up and keep pushing through wherever we are," she said on her campaign's site.

Follow her on Instagram at @paolav_perez.