Yarisleidis Cirilo and Katherin Nuevo were the first Cubans to win gold at the Canoe Sprint World Championships in Halifax, Canada, and improved on the silver in the 200-meter double canoe last year in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The duo pushed the delegation up to eleventh by country, along with the invaluable contribution of silver from the C-2 Olympic champion at a thousand meters, Serguey Torres, who came second in the single at 5,000 (23:37.94 minutes), behind the Moldovan Serghei Tarnovshi (23:37.85), and ahead of German Sebastian Brendel (23:55.18).
“When in Guantánamo my mother asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered: an athlete,” Cirilo replied some time ago.
They all fight hard, although you don’t always come out of the lake with a prize, when you compete in several events in five days, against Olympic and world titleholders. Hours training, from very early, the whole year, and the only company is the sound of the oar breaking the water with each stroke, something worth honoring.
A REPEATED VICTORY AGAINST CHINA
Cirilo and Nuevo in the double canoe at 200 meters, with 45.9 seconds, left the silver for the Chinese Wenjun Lin-Changwen (45.24), and the Hungarians Glada Bragato-Bianka Nagy (47.59) finished third. The Caribbean defeated the Asians on two other occasions, at the World Cup in Poznan, Poland, signing the world record (43.84), in May.
Shixiao Xu-Mengya Sun (2:01.26), from China, dominated the C-2 at 500 meters, while the Cubans (2:09.71) finished ninth. Liudmyla Luzan-Anastasiia Chetverikova (2:03.32), from Ukraine, took the second step, and Giada Bragato-Blanka Nagy (2:04.70) received the bronze.
In the C-1 at 200, Cirilo was sixth (50.92 seconds), in a regatta won by Nevin Harrison, US Olympic champion, by passing the finish line in (49.87) far from the (45.52) that brought him gold in Tokyo 2020.
The Spanish María Corbera (50.54) was second and the Chinese Wenjun Lin (50.55) captured the bronze. The fourth step in the 5,000 of the C-1 closed the performance of Yarisleidis (29:09.94), in a test won by the Canadian Katie Vincent (27:50.88), the German Annika Loske (27:55.52) and the Spanish María Corbera (28:02.52).
José Ramón Pelier was the last in the single-seater boat, traveling the kilometer in (4:21:64). The podium was occupied by the Romanian Catalin Chirila, second in the world ranking (290 points), who stopped time in (4:14.28), followed by the Brazilian Isaquías Santos (4:15.80) and the Czech Martin Fuksa (4:16.21). ), leader of the world list (290).
Spain dominated the classic with four gold, two silver and the same amount of bronze, followed by Hungary (4-1-6), Poland (3-3-1), Canada (3-1-2), Germany (2 -7-5), Australia (2-2-1), Ukraine (2-1-2), New Zealand (2-0-0), China (1-2-2), Brazil (1-1-0 ), Cuba (1-1-0). The United States (1-0-0) finished five places below Cuba and several European countries, up to 27, were left without gold medals in their account.