Cuban volleyball doctor has no concern about jet lag

Havana, August 22 (RHC).- The doctor of the Cuban volleyball team, Ramses Raymond, is confident that the island's players will adapt without difficulties to the time change between Cuba and Slovenia, where they will play from Friday the first phase of the XX World Championship.

"They should have no problems to adapt well and quickly to the time change between Havana and Ljubliana (6 hours)," the doctor assured in statements to Radio Habana Cuba (www.radiohc.cu), before traveling this Monday with the whole group to Ljuibliana via Paris.

Known as "jet lag disorder", jet lag is a temporary sleep problem that can affect anyone, although according to Raymond the effects are minor in well-prepared athletes.

"We are going to make a break of about eight hours in France - also 6 hours difference in relation to Cuba -, and already there the adaptation begins", explained the doctor and reminded that although in theory the ideal is to recover "one hour per day" there are other variables to counteract the jet lag.

The most important is to have a "good base of aerobic work" (constant at medium capacity), he said and warned that others have to do with "physical preparation, psychological factors and sports experience".

Of the 14 members of the squad, 12 have experience in previous World Cups and most of them are signed with foreign clubs.

The doctor considered it inappropriate to have been preparing the players in that sense during the few days of training in Havana and recalled that previous experiences were not effective.

"Trying to sleep hours before or after to adapt is inappropriate, it is not meaningful. For the Sydney-2000 Olympic Games - 14 hours apart -, people trained at dawn and thinking it was something positive, but life proved later that it was a mistake, because sleep has a rhythm," he recalled.

According to the expert of the Cuban Institute of Sports Medicine (IMD), the 14 members of the team are in good health and are very motivated for the World Cup, including star Robertlandy Simón, who is already training after the cut he suffered in one of his fingers of his attacking hand and made him miss the Pan American Cup in Canada.

In the World Cup - from August 26 to September 11 - Cuba is in a difficult group along with Japan, Qatar and Brazil, the latter being its first opponent next Friday.

Cuban volleyball has four medals in the history of the world championships: two silver (1990 and 2010) and two bronze (1978 and 1998). In the previous edition (2018) they occupied a discreet 18th place, with the same base of the squad that will be presented now in Slovenia-Poland.