At the 12th IAAF World Championships in Berlin in August, the island nation of Cuba placed 12th in the final medal standing with 6 medals (1-Gold, 4-Silver 1-Bronze). Incidentally, Cuba hosted the successful CAC Championship just weeks prior to Berlin, and was able to send 35 athletes to Worlds.
The Berlin medalists are continuing a rich Cuban tradition in the field events but do not seem to get any love from today’s print media. Is it because the field events generate less excitement than what takes place on the track? But how do we explain the popularity of Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic (high jump) and Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva (pole vault)? Is it because Cuba is Spanish-speaking while the rest, its Caribbean neighbors, are English-speaking? Or is because they were once feared and disliked because of their political ideology?
The most recognizable Cuban track athlete today is Dayron Robles (above), the world record holder over the 110m hurdles (12.87 sec). That notwithstanding, he was unable to complete in the finals of his signature event in Berlin due to injury. However, his compatriots certainly stepped up.
Cuba took first and second in the women’s triple jump final, with the flamboyant Yargeris Savigne taking Cuba’s lone gold with a leap of 14.95m while Mabel Gay captured the silver (14.61m). The 24-yr-old Savigne is known for her knee-high socks and her free-spirited hair-dos. After a disappointed 5th place finish in Beijing in 2008, Yargeris successfully defended her World Championships title in Berlin. Her winning mark of 14.95m is, however, well below her personal best of 15.28m. Savigne seems to have fun competing and her style and grace is a welcome throw-back to the ’70s and ’80s.
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STALWARTS OF THE 60s & 70s
Former Cuban sprint star Fulgencia Romay (left) stood out among Cuba’s formidable cadre of female runners that ruled the Caribbean.
Born January 16, 1944, Romay was a member of her country’s 4x100m squad that won silver at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. That was the first Olympic medal to be won by Cuban women.
At the 1971 Central American and Caribbean Championships in Kingston, Jamaica, Romay won gold in 11.6 secs, beating compatriot Silvia Chivás (right), also timed at 11.6, and Jamaica’s then sprint queen Rosie Allwood, 11.9 secs. In the 200m, Romay again defeated Chivás, clocking 23.6 secs to Chivás’s 23.9.
That same year, Romay went to the Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia and had to settle for the silver medal in the 200m behind Canada’s Stephanie Berto, who ran 23.57 to win. Romay was timed at 23.70 secs.
At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, Romay won another 4x400m relay medal, this time the bronze.
Then was Silvia Chivás (born September 10, 1954), who, like Romay, competed at the 1972 Olympics. She won the bronze medal in 100m, behind Germany’s Renate Stecher (gold) and Australian Raelene Boyle (silver). Chivás took another bronze medal in 4x100m relay together with her teammates Marlene Elejarde (who died in a car accident in 1989), Carmen Valdes and Romay.
-Desmond G. Palmer
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Another Cuban woman, Yarelis Barrios, took silver in the women’s discus with a season-best throw of 65.31m. Guillermo Martinez and Leonel Suarez also took silver in the men’s javelin throw (86.41m) and the men’s decathlon (8640 points), respectively. Alexis Copello captured Cuba’s only bronze medal in the men’s triple jump with a leap of 17.36m.
Sprint Factory vs. Field House
While Jamaica may be called the “Sprint Factory” due to its affinity to produce world-class sprinters at home and abroad (Bolt, Powell, Linford Christie, Donavan Bailey, et al), its Spanish-speaking neighbor, Cuba, located just 90 miles north of Jamaica, can be called the “Field House.” Over the years, Cuba has always performed creditably well in field events on the international scene.
However, a flashback shows that the women sprinters of the ’70s were no joke. The likes of Fulgencia Romay and Silvia Chivas in the sprints gave the world something to talk about in the sprint as well as the 4x1 relay. And who remembers female quarter-miler Aurelia Penton and the 6’3” big man, Alberto Juantorena, known as El Caballo, or The Horse, born December 3, 1950? At the 1976 Olympics, he became the first and so far only athlete to win both the 400m and 800m Olympic titles.
But back to the field events; Barcelona Olympics high jump champion Javier Sotomayer was a strong force in the 1990s and captured numerous high jumps titles in international competition. Ivan Pedroso (long jump), Yumileidi Cumba (shot put), Olisdeilys Menendez (javelin thrown), Yipsi Moreno (hammer throw) and Yunaika Crawford (hammer throw) all earned Olympics medals in field events over the last 10 years.
Despite the apparent lack of love, Yargeris Savigne and her fellow Cuban athletes may not win the popular votes as the deserving athletes from the neighboring “sprint factory” but they are busy building the block to ensure that the “Field House” continues to produce world-class athletes. And they are doing it looking quite fashionable.