Cubans to be in action tomorrow at winter athletics tour

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 9 (ACN) Cuban triple jumpers Lazaro Martinez and Cristian Napoles, as well as high jumper Luis Enrique Zayas, will be active tomorrow in the winter indoor athletics tour, in what will be their third appearances of the season.

Martinez and Napoles will compete this Saturday in the Lievin meeting, France, and Zayas in the Hustopecske meeting, Czech Republic, according to the list of competitions sent to the press by the Cuban Federation of that sport.

The triple jump athletes were placed fifth and sixth, respectively, in the Orlen Copernicus Cup held on Tuesday in Torun, Poland, a gold category event of the World Athletics Indoor Tour.

In what was the second appearance of both, Martinez placed fifth with 16.48 meters (m) and Napoles sixth with only 16.30 m, in a final that gathered six athletes.

On January 28, Martinez, world runner-up in Budapest, Hungary, last August, placed second in the L'Eure athletic meeting, held in Val-de-Reuil, France, where Napoles (16.30 m) finished fourth.

There, he went on to reach 16.81 m in the final of that specialty, won by Hugues Fabrice Zango, from Burkina Faso, the world champion in the Hungarian capital, who dominated from his first attempt with a 17.15 m record.

Martinez, universal indoor gold medalist in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2022, won the silver medal in Budapest with 17.41 m, while his teammate came in third with a personal best of 17.40 m, just one centimeter short.

As for Zayas, this Wednesday he shared 11th place with three other jumpers in the athletic meeting hosted by Trinec, in the Czech Republic.

There, the champion of Lima 2019 Pan American Games and Santiago de Chile 2023, began surpassing the height of 2.10 m and after failing his first attempt over 2.15 m, he withdrew from the event.

The day before, he had won the meeting in Udine, Italy, with Challenger category of the World Athletics Indoor Tour, in his indoor debut this season with a record of 2.26 m achieved in his first attempt, and then he would fail twice the height of 2.30 m, although he was already sure of victory.