Cuba to improve its performance at the World Athletics Cup in Budapest

 

HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 15 (ACN) The Cuban delegation that will compete in the 19th World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, will try to improve its previous performance in Eugene, United States, where with 15 points and no medals it finished in 29th place by countries.

Cuba shared that place with Slovenia, thanks to two fourth places, a sixth and a seventh, in a race in which it went without medals for the first time in the history of these events.

With a team of 21 athletes, the island's representatives will seek to climb the podium at least once and tus put an end to last year's "drought" in the competition organized in the United States.

The Caribbean nation's previous most discreet performance in terms of medals was in London 2017, when its athletes only won a bronze medal through pole vaulter Yarisley Silva.

Now in Budapest, from 19 to 27 of this month, the biggest options seem to be in the triple jump, in both sexes, through Leyanis Perez and Lazaro Martinez, without ruling out Liadagmis Povea.

Perez finished fourth in Eugene in 2022 and sent a warning of her serious pretensions to place herself in the elite of that event, to which must be added her competitive progression with marks of respect.

As for triple jumper Martinez, who won the world indoor gold medal in Belgrade, Serbia, the previous year, has just been crowned in El Salvador with a good 17.51 m, which established a new record for the triple jump in regional events, breaking the 17.46 m of his compatriot Yohandri Betanzos in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2006.