The prestigious specialized publication Track and Fields predicted a medal for Cuba at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, silver for triple jumper Leyanis Perez.
Known for making quite accurate forecasts, the American magazine gives Perez (21 years old) as the runner-up in the triple jump, as escort of the queen of the specialty, the extra-class Yulimar Rojas (Venezuela).
The student of Ricardo Ponce will try to crown a brilliant season in the new National Athletics Center in Budapest, where she leads the prestigious Diamond League and has improved her personal best four times to 14.98m.
Several experts consider that the time has come for the talented athlete to surpass the 15m barrier, something that has only been achieved by two other Cuban athletes, Yamilé Aldama and Yargeris Savigne, as well as Magdelín Martínez, although already when she was competing for Italy.
Track and Fields points out as champion in Budapest to the extra-class Yulimar (leader of the campaign with 15.16), and places as fourth in the specialty the Olympic finalist also Cuban Liadagmis Povea, owner of a 14.85 this year, only eight centimeters away from her personal record.
On the men’s side, the famous magazine only anticipates triathletes Lázaro Martínez and Cristian Nápoles as finalists, in fifth and sixth places, respectively.
After processing the data from Budapest-2023, the magazine’s international panel indicated that the United States will dominate the World Championships, with 16 medals in the women’s category (6-6-4) and 14 in the men’s (6-5-3).
Another specialized site, although in this case online and of lesser renown (OA Sport of Italy), predicted that Cuba will win three medals, silver with Leyanis and Lazarito, and bronze with Povea.
In any case, both predictions estimate that Cuba will improve in the Hungarian capital its performance in the previous world championship in Eugene (USA), when it missed the podium for the first time in the history of the world championships.
