HAVANA, Cuba.- Paris is about to host the Olympic Games, and as an appetizer I propose my selection of the five most moving episodes signed by Cuban athletes in the history of the quadrennial events. I insist: more than the greatness of the event itself, what will be in focus is its ability to move.
Here are those moments in chronological order.
Juantorena’s double
The deep voice of Hector Rodriguez He was in charge of the race where Alberto Juantorena sought gold in a race where he was not the favourite. At that time, middle distance was not his speciality. His strong point had been the 400m dash, but some divine voice whispered to his coach, the Polish Zabierzowski, that the Santiago native could achieve the first and still only Olympic double in two apparently incompatible distances.
The shot has just gone off for the 800-meter final. Two laps around the track. The eight finalists have already emerged…
Juantorena is on a very good pace as he reaches the first 300 metres…
The Cuban managed the race as if he had known it since he was a child. He pulled the block when the rails disappeared, passed first through the intermediate finish line – 190 centimetres high crowned by a stunning sprawl – and then gave way to the Indian Sriram Singh, the classic suicide. He was not worried about that: his job was to control the American Rick Wolhuter and the Belgian Ivo van Damme. So he floated while he cast the bait for the rest to increase the pace. Pure and hard strategy of attrition.
There goes Juantorena, there goes Wolhuter. A very close race as expected. They are entering the last corner…
The die was cast. Juantorena He lengthened his stride to the limits of sporting elegance (2.74 metres of stride), his rivals lost heart and the world accepted that on 25 July 1976 he would not be beaten by anyone. There would be a world record and three days later – barely three! – he would finish the job with a lap of the oval in 44.26 seconds. Incredible: a single neck for the 400 and 800 titles.
Over time, Juantorena unabashedly donned the mantle of a political standard-bearer, but nothing – not even himself – could tarnish what he had achieved at the Montreal stadium.
Juantorena with his heart, Juantorena comes with his heart, he will arrive in first place… Gold medal for Juantorena from Cuba…
The 2-3 of Falcón and Neisser Bent
Sometimes it’s not the gold. Sometimes a silver and a bronze shine more. They are so blinding that they are never forgotten. In Atlanta, during the Centennial Games, Rodolfo Falcón and Neisser Bent achieved a feat that this country does not expect to repeat in the next millennia.
No predictions were right. Who would have thought that the pools would offer two podiums for Cuba, a land of rings, tatami mats, tracks, planks and ball diamonds? Who, if not a madman (or at least a crazy fortune teller) would dare to predict not one but two medals! in the 100-meter backstroke final?
The scene was filmed on July 23, 1996. Sleepless because of the persistent idea of improving his seventh place at the summer competition in Barcelona, Falcón did not rest properly in the early hours of the morning before the end. It was not enough for him to know that he was the best swimmer in history in a country with no tradition in swimming pools. He wanted more.
As far as we know, Neisser slept without incident, supported by the inexperienced (one might say, naive) energy of a 19-year-old athlete who carries the label of underdog. However, in the morning qualifying round he broke the Cuban record and, suddenly, his chances rose.
So, one ambitious, the other inspired, they launched themselves into the waters of the Georgia Tech Campus Recreation Center. Falcón on line 3; Neisser, on line 5. Among them, the great Jeff Rouse, and on his flanks a series of names (Merisi, Schwenk, López-Zubero…) with plenty of achievements and a track record.
Falcón was a candidate for glory from the first few metres, but Neisser made little use of the dolphin kick, emerging before the rest and giving the impression that he was already done. Thus, while the Havana native remained in the fight the whole time, the man from the island had to push himself to the limit.
In the end Rouse won by half a length. Behind him, almost in unison, the Cubans played, and the door to immortality opened for them.
Pedroso’s last jump
On September 28, 2000, in the seconds between looking ahead, starting a short run and jumping, Ivan Pedroso half his life crossed his mind.
He thought of his mother, who had died shortly before, and told himself that he had to dedicate his long jump title in Sydney to her.
He remembered the setback in Barcelona’92, when the Americans took the podium in the event, and the failure four years later, in the Atlanta event, where he did not even reach eight metres due to training problems caused by an injury.
He said to himself “it’s now or never”, convinced that the seven world championships he had won until then would be worth little if he missed out on the Olympic prize, which was even more valuable than the world record lost to an idiot at a rally in Italy.
He saw his trainers, a few friends, a few girlfriends pass before him, fleeting and severe. He saw Bob Beamon, Carl Lewis, Mike Powell… all the greatest in history, and also that ‘electric’ who threatened to take away what should belong to him, Jay Taurima.
A chain smoker with less the appearance of an athlete than a rock and roll fan, Taurima had delighted his compatriots with the best performance of his very discreet career, finishing off the task with an 8.49 that forced the favourite to overtake him in the sixth and decisive jump.
I always say it: that day Taurima didn’t believe in anyone, but Pedroso believed in Iván Pedroso. So, despite the whirlwind of things that overwhelmed him in the seconds before his last attempt, the Cuban went out in search of the board with his faith boiling over. Success and infamy ran with his legs, but success was faster at the time of takeoff, flight and fall.
The rest is already known.
The comeback of the Morenas
Russia had Chachkova, Godina, Tichtchenko, Artamonova… Their girls had beaten Cuba in the group stage, and in the duel for glory they were sailing on a smooth sail again. They needed one more blow to reach the throne. But then their sword broke.
I’ll use a paragraph of mine to explain how what happened on September 30, 2000 at the Taraflex in the Sydney Entertainment Center could have happened:
“Once upon a time,” I wrote, “there was a volleyball team that captivated the world. All of its women were black, some darker than others, so they were well suited to the nickname given by a lucid commentator who said, ‘They are the Spectacular Brunettes of the Caribbean,’ and that nickname went around the globe thanks to their venerable exploits, and those exploits were placed on the altar of Cubans along with Oshún and Yemayá, and those saints took care of them while they went from one place to another, spiking balls and rivals and conquering towns and trophies.”
That’s the point: the Russians had to cross swords with the best team that volleyball has ever known. A group armed with an overdose of character and talent, physically powerful and mentally invincible. In the engine room, the magician Eugene George. On the court, lionesses. In the showcase, three Olympic golds, the last of them won with blood and fire against Chachkova, Godina, Tichtchenko, Artamonova…
Things were looking so bad that Saturday in Australia that the team’s trademark image, the smile, was absent for an hour. Russia 2, Cuba 0. However, it was right at that moment that everything changed.
“After the second set ended, there was a confrontation. We exchanged a few things and we came out calmer,” she later said. Rule TowersAnd indeed, what they said worked wonders (what could it be?) because the Russians began to bite, one action after another, the imaginary bitter dust of failure.
Never has Cuba enjoyed a victory more.
The definitive consecration of Mijaín
“This is remarkable! We are talking about greatness!”. If you search on YouTube for Mijaín López’s duel for the gold medal in his category in Greco-Roman wrestling in Tokyo, in the first link you will hear a couple of English-speaking commentators going crazy about the feat.
By then, Mijain had three gold medals under the five rings, but he still lost out in comparisons to Karelin, the prodigy who sowed terror and chaos for almost 15 years. So he had become obsessed with winning the fourth title, the one that eluded the ‘Russian Bear’ in the final of the 2000 Olympics.
He could not escape. The giant from Herradura went into the crucial match with the certainty that he was going to devour the Georgian Kajaia and become – once and for all – the best fighter of any era. And he did it without receiving any points against him, just as he had done in his three previous fights.
The most exciting frame of the film, however, was not exactly the one in which the referee raised his arm in victory. For me, the moment that made my hair stand on end was ten seconds before the time limit, after his opponent (tired of a fruitless struggle to come back) stopped the action in a sign of surrender. It was as if he were saying, “Okay, you win, we can’t handle you.”
The Cuban, happy and uncontrollable, threw one coach over his shoulder, carried the other one over his shoulder like a simple bundle of cotton, picked up the flag and turned on all the lenses. There was so much sweat on his face that it was never possible to tell if he was crying.
Previously, only five champions
s had won the same discipline in four consecutive Olympic Games: the Dane Paul Elvstrøm, the Japanese Kaori Icho and the Americans Al Oerter, Carl Lewis and Michael Phelps. As of August 2, 2021, the club reached six members, and the most exciting thing about this story is that in Paris, if he wins again, the Pinar del Río native will be unique in his class.
