Almost around the corner is the World Indoor Athletics Championships, which in its 18th edition will be held in Belgrade, Serbia, from March 18 to 20.
Without having the importance and qualitative level of the events in the world in the open air, once again many eyes will be directed at the protagonists of an athletic contest in which Cuba aspires not to go unnoticed, despite its small delegation.
In this event, the largest of the Antilles will be represented by six athletes, including the long jumper Maikel Massó, bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympics; and pole vaulter Yarisley Silva, runner-up in the London 2012 summer event.
Also appearing in the group are the triple jumpers Liadagmis Povea, Leyanis Pérez and Lázaro Martínez, as well as Roxana Gómez, a 400 meter flat runner.
In that list, the absence of Juan Miguel Echevarría (long jump) stands out, owner of the silver medal in the fair under the five rings of the Japanese capital, because he joined the preparation late because he continued with his recovery from the injury sustained in that competition.
It should be remembered that Echevarría won the title of his test in Birmingham 2018, hence his non-attendance detracts from one of the great medal possibilities for Cuba.
Three years ago, the other athlete who stood on the podium on the island was Yorgelis Rodríguez, winner of the bronze medal in the pentathlon, and who will not participate this time either.
Thus, it is difficult to match the performance of the last version, although to cite two examples Massó already knows what it means to be in the elite with his outstanding performance in Tokyo, and Silva has accumulated great experience at the highest level, including a universal gold metal indoors in Sopot, Poland, eight years ago.
Precisely about the aspirations of Cubans in Belgrade, Yipsi Moreno, national athletics commissioner and member of the Council of State, told the Cuban News Agency by telephone that the aim is for all to be finalists.
That means placing the exponents of the triple jump, the pole vault and the long jump among the top 12, and that the four-hundred-year-old Gómez advances to the final of the first eight, as she did in the Japanese capital.
Clearly they seem attainable purposes, if one also takes into account that Cuban athletes have competed in several international meetings in Europe, which has undoubtedly been an important blank for them.
Now, as always aspiring to more and setting higher goals is essential in life, hopefully, in addition to being finalists, our team “beautiful” with all their presence on the podium, which would be an additional joy for the fans of the King sport in the Caribbean nation, which is sixth in the historical medal table of those events with 50 medals.
According to Alfredo Sánchez, statistician of the Cuban Federation of the discipline, these awards are broken down into 18 gold, 17 silver and 15 bronze.
That list is largely dominated by the Americans (110-75-64), followed by Russia (70-62-50) and Ethiopia (26-8-10), in the leading trio; while they complete the group of the first five countries: Germany (24-27-31) and the United Kingdom (18-28-25), in fourth and fifth place,
respectively.
In the case of the Cuban athletes, in Paris 1997 they reached their best performance with five metals (3-2-0), to place second among 118 delegations, only behind the United States (6-2-7); while in Birmingham 2018 they shared eighth place with the Czech Republic, winning a title and a bronze medal.
