HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — Thousands of Cubans welcomed home the island’s Paris 2024 team led by five-time Olympic gold wrestling champion Mijain Lopez.

A bus carrying the team drove through the streets of the capital Havana to the La Piragua plaza on the Malecon waterfront esplanade, where people were waiting at midnight to greet them.

Upon arrival, Lopez, 41, took to the stage with his two sons and other members of the sports delegation to greet the crowd attending a salsa concert in their honor.

“We are happy to arrive here, happy with the welcome, it has been incredible since we got off the plane,” said the Greco-Roman wrestling legend, who had retired after the 2021 Tokyo Games before returning to the sport to achieve his landmark triumph.

Three-and-a-half hours earlier, President Miguel Díaz-Canel received them on the runway of Jose Martí International Airport, where he arrived hand in hand with Lopez’s mother Leonor Nunez, who hugged her son excitedly when he descended from the plane.

The Olympic delegation was led by Lopez, who made Olympic history in Paris with a fifth consecutive individual gold medal in the same event, and boxer Erislandy Alvarez, champion in the 63.5-kilogram division.

Cuban state television had for days been broadcasting a message from Lopez in Paris inviting his compatriots to join the party on the Malecon.

“We are here celebrating the triumph of the Olympic medalists,” said Brayan Alvarez Adalberto, director of the Alvarez y su Son orchestra, as the concert featuring three popular salsa orchestras got underway.

People came out to cheer their champions in some areas of the capital, but in others there were few in attendance as public transportation is usually sporadic at night due to gasoline shortages and numerous broken buses, according to the authorities.

Cuba, which is facing its worst economic crisis with soaring inflation, blackouts and shortages of food and medicine, was represented in Paris by a delegation of 61 athletes in 16 sports.

The island, which did not achieve its goal of placing in the top 20 at the Games, won nine medals in Paris, two gold, one silver and six bronze medals.