Cuban athlete Leyanis Pérez claimed the gold medal today in the women’s triple jump at the World Athletics Championships, soaring to 14.94 meters — a championship record and her best mark of the year.

At just 23 years old, the Caribbean star sealed her triumph with a fourth-round leap that definitively lifted her to the summit of the discipline, confirming the rise of an athlete who had already earned bronze at Budapest 2023, captured the indoor world title in Nanjing, and secured the Diamond League crown.

Silver went to the Dominican Republic’s Thea Lafond, the reigning Olympic champion from Paris 2024, who came agonizingly close with a 14.89-meter effort. Bronze was claimed by Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas (14.76), a living legend of the event, four-time outdoor world champion, three-time indoor world champion, Olympic gold medalist in Tokyo 2020, and still the holder of the world record.

The return of Rojas, after two years sidelined by an Achilles tendon injury that kept her out of Paris 2024, added drama to a final that crowned the sport’s new queen.

Other Caribbean standouts also shone: Cuba’s Liadagmis Povea, indoor world runner-up earlier this year, placed fourth with 14.72, while Jamaica’s Shanieka Ricketts, Olympic silver medalist in the French capital, finished fifth with 14.56.

In what became a historic night for Latin American and Caribbean athletics, Pérez inscribed her name alongside the greats, “lifting her country and the continent on the very stage where Rojas once reigned.”