Yaimé Pérez’s record did not take off enough to place her in a privileged position in the recently concluded World Athletics Championships in Eugene, but her steps did go further.
The athlete, the main medal option of the Cuban delegation at the Oregon event, would have left the delegation shortly before returning to the island, as first announced Play-Off Magazine.
The sports portal reported that the return of the Antillean representation had been divided into three groups and the first of them was already in national territory.
At 31 years old, Pérez was in seventh place in the discus throw with a discreet record of 63.07 meters. The woman from Santiago was one of the favorites following winning the title at the World Cup in Doha, Qatar, in 2019 and winning a bronze medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
With Pérez’s escape, there are already three members who decided to cut ties with the Cuban delegation that attended the event in the United States, news confirmed by the official website Cubadebate.
19-year-old javelin thrower Yiselena Ballar Rojas led the way when she escaped upon arrival at Miami International Airport on a layover flight to Oregon on July 13.
Then it was the turn of the team’s physiotherapist, Carlos González Morales.
Cuba left Oregon without a medal, its worst performance so far in a World Championship in athletics.
In the 2017 universal competition in London, Yarisley Silva rescued a bronze in the pole vault and in Helsinki 1983, Luis Mariano Delis obtained a silver in the discus throw.
The best results on US soil came from Maykel Massó, fourth in the long jump, and Leyanis Pérez, who placed in the same position in the women’s triple jump.
Paradoxically, the Portuguese Pedro Pichardo took gold in the triple jump.
Olympic champion at the Tokyo Games, Pichardo, who was born in Cuba and emigrated to the European country in 2017, won the final at Hayward Field in Eugene with a first jump of 17.95 meters, the best of the season.
The best performance of an Antillean team in the history of the World Cups came in Athens 1997, when they won four golds and one silver and placed third in the medal table, only behind the United States and Germany.
The champions on that occasion were Javier Sotomayor in the high jump, Iván Pedroso in the long jump, Ana Fidelia Quirot in the 800 meters and Yoelbi Quesada in the triple jump.
This story was originally published on July 26, 2022 8:02 p.m.
