|
12th World Championships in Athletics
Copello wins bronze in triple jump
Bronze in the triple (17.36). Cuba
already has three medals and 28 points, for 8th
place. Competing today: Dayron Robles (hurdles)
Leonel Suárez (decathlon) and Yarelis Barrios
(discus)
Enrique Montesinos
 BERLIN.—
Cuba begins this Wednesday, August 19, in 8th place
by medals (1-1-1) and by points (28), in large part
owing to its triple jump team’s performance on
Tuesday, particularly that of Alexis Copello, who
jumped from sixth place to third, taking the bronze
with a mark of 17.36 on his sixth and last
opportunity.
The
greenest of Cuba’s male jumpers was the one who
showed his stuff to maintain Cuba’s reputation in
this specialty.
 Copello,
who said that he has trained hard and carefully
during this season so that everything would come out
right, affirmed he had given it his all in the final
after a certain amount of instability in the
classifying round on Sunday, when he failed to reach
the 17-meter mark.
The
pupil of coach Sigifredo Bandera dedicated his medal
“to my parents (in Los Pinos, Santiago de Cuba), who
have always encouraged me; to my brother, who called
me several times to give me support, and to all of
the people, to the Commander in Chief, to everybody
who had confidence in me.”
LEADERS COMPETE
The
only two Cubans who are world leaders in track and
field this year, Dayron Robles and Leonel Suárez,
will be out on the field today in Berlin’s Olympic
stadium. Robles, along with Dayron Capetillo, will
run a trial early in the morning, while Suárez,
together with his teammates Yordani García and
Yunior Díaz, will be busy all day in the first five
trials. As if that weren’t enough, three women
discus throwers, with Yarelis Barrios in the lead,
will be aiming to make the finals.
The
other Cuban representative in the triple jump, Arnie
D. Girat, admitted that he never felt comfortable
enough to compete, and even when he was in third
place, he knew he didn’t have the resources to hold
it, which is why he finally ended up in fifth place
(17.26 meters).
The
winner of that competition was Briton Phillips Idowu,
with 17.73 meters, whose performance was rain on the
parade of world and Olympic champion Nelson Evora
(17.55), setting a new best mark of the year.
OSLEIDYS BEGINS
“Osleidys is just beginning,” the experienced
30-year-old javelin thrower said with a big smile
after taking seventh place with a throw of 63.11,
her best this year, and actually the only one that
she was able to hook in the final.
“I’ve realized that I still have possibilities and
my coach (Dionisio Quintana) knows it too,” affirmed
the former world record-holder, 2004 Olympic
champion and 2005 world champion. She added that the
event was not that strong internationally, that she
felt good, and that her age was in her favor,
arguing, “See that a 37-year-old woman just won.”
She
was referring to German Steffi Nerius, who with an
initial mark of 67.30 was able to “block” the
favorites for the rest of the trial, including world
record holder (72.28) Barbora Spotakova (silver with
66.42) and Russian Maria Abakumova (bronze-66.06),
who had led the classification on Sunday with the
best mark of the year (68.92).
ANAY AND COLLAZO TO THE SEMIFINALS
Anay
Tejeda, in the women’s 100m hurdles, and William
Collazo, in the men’s 400-m, made the important move
into the semifinals. Collazo came in second place
(45.52) in the second of seven races, and advanced
with the tenth-best time among the 24 semifinalists.
Today he could become the second Cuban after Roberto
Hernández to advance to the fight for medals in the
lap around the track, because his only real rivals
in this round are LaShawn Merritt (USA) and Renny
Quow (TRI), who beat him in the first stage with
45.21. Those who will classify are the first two
plus those with the two best times among the rest,
which is why he’s going to have to give it his all.
That’s what Anay did in the previous evening’s
trial, performing very well in the women’s 100m
hurdles: her best mark of the season (12.82), for
third place in the last of five races. She faces a
stronger challenge to make it to the finals because
during the second semifinal of today, she will be up
against three women with better times and solid
records: Cherry (USA), Felicien (CAN) and Foster-Hylton
(JAM). And only two will make it.
Translated by Granma International
|
