Cuba With Three Athletes in Oregon World Athletics Championship

Three moments will capture the attention of Cubans this Friday, when the 2022 Oregon World Athletics Championship begins in this city, a contest that arrives for the first time on U.S. soil with great possibilities of giving us emotions to keep.

High jumper Luis Enrique Zayas will mark the Cuban premiere at Hayward Field, when he competes in the qualifying group-B in search of a final in which to access without "holding breath" he will need to go over 2.30 meters.

Luis Enrique has precisely that record as his top in open air and, although indoors he has already surpassed it, during this season he has not "flown" beyond 2.25 meters, achieved in Havana.

That’s why the Pan American champion of Lima 2019 will have to approach his best performance to access the defining segment, which would undoubtedly be a remarkable result.

The first contestants in this test, where 29 have registered, will find the rod at a height of 2.17 meters. The favorites, including the Olympic monarchs Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy, could start much closer to the required minimum mark.

Still fresh in the memory is the night in the Olympic stadium in Tokyo both agreed on the unusual distribution of the title instead of aspiring to glory alone. Now they will engage in another battle and it will not be until next Monday that the outcome is known.

Back to Cuba, this Friday afternoon the Olympic bronze medalist in long jump Maykel Massó will also make his initial presentation; and the sprinter Shainer Reginfo will have his debut and greatest challenge in his short sports career in the 100-meter heats.

Massó was placed in group two and his first objective will be to reach the distance of 8.15 meters without too much effort, which would place him directly in the fight for medals.

He will have three attempts, hence the obligation to get rid of all tension and achieve the necessary concentration. He knows that his medal in the Japanese capital makes him a benchmark in this sport, and although in the current season he has fallen one centimeter short the minimum mark now required to advance, he has been focused and confident that he can overcome the challenge.

Greek Miltiadis Tentoglou, Olympic champion, will be one of the favorites to join him in the group, which also includes defending champion Jamaican Tajay Gayle.

As usual, there will be a preliminary phase for the hectometer with four heats. The top two places from each, along with the owners of the remaining six fastest times, will join the qualifying heats.

In this phase, Shainer will begin his doing into the queen event of athletics, which arouses great passions for these lands, where the hosts seek victory  that will make them forget the "offense" of the Italian Marcel Jacobs, who surprised with his Olympic medal in Tokyo 2020, a year ago.

For the sprinter from Isla de la Juventud, world bronze medalist among juniors and with 11.07 seconds as the best historical record, the event offers him room to grow. Lowering his personal mark would be an important step in his fresh career.

They, like so many other stars, begin to cross paths on the campus of the University of Oregon, where every corner speaks athletics thanks to an appointment that many experts are quick to classify as historic.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff