Cuban Lezcay wins 400 meters in Ibero-American Athletics Championships

HAVANA, Cuba, May 16 (acn) Cuban Yoandys Lescay made headlines in the Rio 2016 Ibero-American Athletics Championships when beating in the men's 400m final the Olympic runner-up Luguelín Santos in a day where the Cuban men's 4x100 relay scored 38.44 seconds in semifinals and virtually qualified to the Olympics.

Lescay, 22 and runner-up of the Veracruz-2014 Central American and Caribbean Games, scored his season best (45.36 s), giving the luxury to beat the Dominican star on the final stretch, where he is one of the "monsters" worldwide.
The silver medal went to Santos (45.58) and the bronze medalist was Brazilian Pedro Oliveira (45.64). Williams Collazo, the other Cuban in the final, finished seventh with 45.92, his best time of the last two years.
The men's 4x100 meters relay - César Ruiz, Roberto Skyers, Rene Mena and Yaniel Carrero- made one of its best performances of the past two decades, scoring 38.44 s in semi-finals, time that virtually guarantees them an Olympic berth.
They climbed from 19th to eighth seat in the world ranking, only preceded by Jamaica, United States, France, Germany, Japan, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil.
This record appears actually fifth in the world this year and is the best for Cuba since the bronze medal they won in Sydney-2000 with 38.04.
In the past 16 years the best record of Cuba in this event had been an identical 38.44 in the First IAAF World Relays Bahamas-2014.
The performance of Cubans can be seen even bigger, as his coach, Jose Alberto Sanchez, could not make the trip to Brazil due to last minute bureaucratic problems.
Today, final day of the contest, Cuba will also seek the title in the men's 4x400 event with a team made up by Lescay, Collazo, Osmaidel Pelliciey and Adrian Chacon, while René Mena will also be in the final of men's 200 meters.
With Lescay´s gold, Cuba jumped to ninth seat in the standings, lead by Brazil (12 titles), followed by Argentina (4) and Uruguay (3).