2024-07-05 19:42:27
Text: Cuba News 360 Editorial Team
Photo: Daily Cooper | Instagram
Eight-hundred-meter runner Daily Cooper was rewarded for her tenacity and improvement in recent competitions and finally won the long-awaited Olympic ticket to Paris 2024 after winning this Sunday at the Guadalajara Meeting, Spain, where triple jumper Leyanis Pérez sank the spikes at more than 15 meters for the first time in her life.
By lowering her best time in her career to 1:58.61 minutes in the double lap of the oval, the middle-distance runner from Camagüey guaranteed direct qualification and became the tenth exponent of Cuban athletics who will be present in the French capital in July.
“I was a little nervous, but I was confident that I could do it, because I have remained stable throughout the preparation… However, I was a little surprised by that mark,” the Pan American runner-up in 1500 meters confessed in statements to the JIT publication.
Cooper also highlighted that “the high altitude preparation base we built in Mexico was fundamental to achieving this progress. That and having had more competitions, because each one gives me a lot of experience,” he said regarding a season full of competitions where he progressively improved his times until reaching the minimum required.
On June 30, other athletes are expected to join the Caribbean team of the so-called king of sports when World Athletics distributes the last places for the summer event through ranking. However, everything points to the Caribbean delegation being below the 21 representatives who attended Tokyo 2020.
Of those previously classified, some participated in the event held in Guadalajara and, without a doubt, the one who performed best was Leyanis Pérez with an extraordinary sequence of 15.16 meters, although with a tailwind of 2.3 meters per second, higher than what is allowed to officially establish the record.
This result allows us to appreciate the excellent form of the Budapest 2023 world bronze medallist and even to dream of a privileged place on the podium at the Stade de France in Paris, given that the main favourite of the event, the Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas, will miss the Games due to injury.
“I wasn’t expecting it. I had strong opponents and I went out as always to look for a good time, but I didn’t imagine it would be 15.16,” the triple jumper from Pinar del Río told the aforementioned media outlet. She still holds the second best official time of the season with the 14.90 she set at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow last March.
However, it was not only Leyanis who showed off her talent in the Spanish city, as Liadagmis Povea also certified two excellent marks of 14.73 metres (official) and 14.81 to take second place in the competition.
Other Cubans with outstanding performances were world runner-up Lázaro Martínez, who won the men’s triple jump with a jump of 17.39 meters, in his case also with a wind that was stronger than expected, while long jumper Hayla González finished second thanks to a mark of 6.63 meters.