Cubans Present at Santiago de Chile's Table Tennis Pre-Olympics

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 31 (acn) With two representatives for each sex, Cuba will take part as of Friday in the pre-Olympic table tennis competition, to be held at the Olympic Training Center of Santiago de Chile.

Cuba will be represented in the men's category by experienced Andy Pereira and Jorge Moises Campos, while Idalys Lovet and Lisi Castillo, who today had their training session prior to the meeting, will compete in women's.
The competition, which will end on April 3, will welcome 73 competitors from 22 countries, 38 men -who will play to try to get the five available tickets- and 35 women, for six tickets to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August.
Barbaro Oliva, national commissioner of the discipline, told ACN that it will be a difficult and competitive competition for Cubans, so objective aspirations will be focused on reaching a quota of four participants, especially in the men's category.
Oliva explained that if both Andy and Moises qualify, the island could opt for a third ticket through a wild card given by the International Federation, whether for Livan Martinez or Yohan Mora, which Cuba would attend an Olympic competition with a full team for the first time.
The official website of the Latin American Table Tennis Union points out that the International Olympic Committee granted 12 tickets to Latin America (six in each sex) for the Rio de Janeiro competition, although in men's only five will be distributed, since Brazilian Hugo Calderano guaranteed his ticket by winning the Pan-American Games in Toronto, Canada, in 2015.