The Venezuelan Olympic Committee (COV) claimed to have sent a communication in September 2023 in response to a request from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding "a group of Venezuelan athletes", informing it that "they have not been prohibited from entering or leaving the country, without being denied the processing of any Venezuelan document, nor are they considered to be politically persecuted".

The IOC on Thursday announced the names of the 36 members of the Paris 2024 Olympic refugee team from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Cuba and Venezuela.

Centeno, 44, will compete in the 10-metre air pistol event in the shooting competition. He moved to Mexico with his sister Marialejandra, who is also competing in this discipline.

The shooter competed for Venezuela in several international events, but gave up five years ago to continue after the Lima 2019 Pan American Games, denouncing the lack of conditions to prepare and compete.

"I leave with a total and absolute disappointment with the leadership of Venezuelan sport," he said at the time in a video posted on social networks.

"We support (those) who are truly displaced (...), those who have been deprived of their opportunities in life; what we can never support is that some take advantage of other circumstances to achieve what they have not been able to achieve on their own," the VOC has now criticised.

The IOC created the Refugee Olympic Team in 2015, a year marked by the displacement of millions of people. It had 10 athletes at Rio 2016 and 29 at Tokyo 2020, including another Venezuelan, boxer Eldric Sella.

The United Nations estimates that more than 7.5 million Venezuelans have migrated over the past decade to escape their country's severe political and economic crisis.