What Roxana Gómez continues to lower records in the 400 meters on the indoor track? It’s true. Now the 52.60 seconds materialized in the PSD Bank Indoor Athletics rally, from the German city of Dortmund, also earned him the second position; in this case behind the tanned 29-year-old Polish Justyna Święty-Ersetic (52.10), who in addition to being a member of the gold medal of the mixed 4×400 in Tokyo, also wore silver in the women’s long relay of the Olympic Games.
Now on German tracks, Roxana broke the French Mondeville’s record in almost two seconds (54.37), still fresh in our memories, and came close to Indira Terrero’s 52.02, the best recorded indoors by a daughter of the Greater Antilles; for those coincidences of life patented in the French city of Metz on February 24, 2013, only no longer representing the Cuban Federation.
Back to Roxana, in her second race on indoor tracks, she relegated Belgian Cynthia Bolingo (52.61) to third position; and his victimizer from Mondeville, the British Ama Pipi (53.90), to the fourth step.
We had talked about the considerable room for improvement for Roxana, who at 23 is showing an impressive progression curve. Let us remember that last year, she had taken her personal level around the oval from 50.76 seconds to 49.71 on the lofty stage of the Japanese capital.
Suffice it to say that this time was the third best time of all time achieved by a West Indian sprinter in history, only surpassed by Ana Fidelia Quirós’s 49.61 in the 1991 Pan American Games in Havana; and a 49.62 from the Caribbean Storm itself in Mexico in 1988.
To delve into this evolutionary spiral we have that from 2014 when she stamped with just 16 years 54.53 seconds to date Roxana has behaved as follows: 52.79 seconds in 2015; the following year she recorded 52.24. In 2017 she saw her run in 51.46 her segment; environment in which she remained in the following two seasons, at a rate of 51.95 and 51.96. 2020 would be a gray year, with injury problems and the scourge of the Covid-19 pandemic that forced an unwanted impasse, so her best time was 54.73. And we already looked at her way of “turning on the turbines in the Olympic year”.
indoor variables
We had avoided some issues regarding the low participation of our sprinters throughout history in indoor circuits, or winter tours, especially in the 400-meter modality.
Hence, Roxana’s records, in addition to emerging new domestic peaks and being notoriously flattering, also qualify as surprising. Logically, the talented disciple of Ricardo Molina will adapt better to the 200-meter tracks, in which she will have to establish the ideal tactics to maintain a race rhythm in the first lap that will later allow her to preserve her strength and patent possible shots in the conclusive, especially in view of the World Cup in Belgrade, Serbia (March 15-18), where it will surely be one of the attractions of our army.
We are talking about facing twice as many curves as those that traditionally have the layout of your outdoor event, of the position of the body both in these and later in the transition to the straight line, of the arm technique, step frequency, rhythm… All elements that, together with the psychological capacity and ability to adapt to the new scenario, will make her, from my perspective, a very careful rival for her opponents.
Roxana is a runner, in my modest pace criteria, who stands out for her step frequency, which reminds me of the way her former counterpart Willian Collazo ran. She has been gaining power in her last campaign, the latter without giving up her main arguments as a sprinter.
It is up to her to continue witnessing her races, to see if she maintains her growth spiral, which momentarily places her with her 52.60 in 33rd place in an annual list commanded by the Dutch and 400c/v specialist, Femke Bol; and in which, in addition to Święty-Ersetic (52.10-19), her compatriots Anna Kiełbasińska (51.10-2nd) are located; and Natalia Kaczmarek (51.58). What power!
Saturday’s session also brought the incursions of the long jumpers Maikel Massó and Lester Lescay, at the Metz gala, where both were below their real potential as neither exceeded the eight meter barrier.
Massó, Olympic bronze in the land of the rising sun, nailed the spikes in 7.80 meters and finished second, behind the king under the five rings, the Greek Miltiadis Tentoglou (8.22). The man from Santiago patented a sequence of (7.76-7.80-7.80-7.69-7.67 and foul). Meanwhile, Lescay only stretched to 7.57 to land in sixth place; with a distant sequence of his talent, which has not yet fully exploited (7.39-7.42-7.43-7.36-7.57-7.34).
Meanwhile, among the most notorious that the second confrontation left on the domestic stage of the Pan American Stadium, were the 18.25 meters of the ballista Juan Carley Vázquez; and the 13.23 seconds of the short hurdler Greisy Robles.
