Cubans have safe tickets to World Indoor Athletics Championships

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 4 (ACN) Cubans Juan Miguel Echevarría and Liadagmis Povea are among the 11 winners of direct tickets or wildcards for the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Belgrade 2022, after dominating their respective events in the winter circuit of the current season.

Echevarría, indoor champion in Birmingham 2018 and world bronze medalist in Doha 2019, won with 30 points in the long jump, while Povea, with 15 points, beat the American Tori Franklin on a tiebreaker, so both appear on the list published by World Athletics as owners of wildcards for next year's event.

Others with similar privileges among the men are Poland's Pavel Maslak (400 m), Ethiopia's Selemon Barega (1500 m), USA's Grant Holloway (60 m hurdles) and Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi (high jump).

Among the women, the selection is completed by the American Javianne Oliver (60 m), the Ethiopian Habitam Alemu (800 m) and Lemlen Hailu (3000 m), the Belarusian Irina Zhuk (pole vault) and the Portuguese Auriol Dongmo (shot put).

Only these specialties granted the places to the universal indoor competition, because they were the ones marked within the golden category in the indoor circuit, and according to the rules of the competition for 2022, different ones will be included to offer equal possibilities to all, according to the sports publication JIT.

The text adds that the fact that Cuba managed to win two of the events, despite being a very atypical season, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and with logical limitations of movement and participation in competitions, stands out as a highlight.

In the long jump, Echevarría triumphed in the three competitions she participated in: Karlsruhe (8.18 m), Lievin (8.25 m) and Madrid (8.14 m), while Povea, bronze medalist at the Pan American Games in Lima 2019, dominated in Karlsruhe with an indoor personal best of 14.54 m and was third on the podium at the Madrid meeting