Baseball
The official calendar for the 54th National Baseball Series will begin on Sunday, September 21st with a match between Pinar del Rio and Matanzas teams, at the Captain San Luis Stadium in the city of Pinar del Río.
As announced by the National Baseball Commission, the Cuban classic will undergo radical changes in its structure, including the decrease in the number of teams and the transfer of its shares to another season of the year.
Now, the season will run until April 12th, and will take a break between November 3rd and December 5th for Cuba's participation in the Central American and Caribbean Games in Veracruz, Mexico.
The competition will also take a recess in January, shortly after the participation of Pinar del Rio team in the Caribbean Series, to be held in Puerto Rico.
Volleyball
In order to win the ticket to the U-23 World Volleyball Cup in 2015, the Cuban team will travel this Friday to Peru, host of the II Pan-American Cup in that category, scheduled from Sept. 7th to 13th.
The group is made up of several known figures who got the silver medal in Guatemala and the classification to U-20 World meeting, and others who obtained the 5th spot in the Pan-American Cup in Mexico Major and qualified for the Grand Prix in 2015.
Juan Carlos Gala confirmed the opposite Melissa Vargas, who on October 16th will meet her 15 springs, as a permanent figure in the team, together with other experienced as Sulian Matienzo, Jennifer Álvarez and Beatriz Vilches.
Cuba will debut on Sept. 7th against Colombia in Group B based in the city of Chincha, about 200 km. south of Lima, the capital, to then take on Costa Rica and closes the preview on Wednesday, the 9th against Dominican Republic, current champion that defeated Brazil in the first version, held in Lima in 2012, where the Caribbeans got their berth to the world cup in 2013.
In the town of Ica --303 km from the Peruvian capital-- will compete Argentina, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and the host. Also there will cover the semifinals on Sept. 12th, which casts the winners advance directly through their areas, while the 3rd and 4th places of each will be measured at the quarterfinals by the Cross-system.
Chess
Cuban GM, Leinier Dominguez, was invited to FIDE World Mind Games and appears 7th in the seeding announced by the organizers of the event agreed from December 11th to 17th in Beijing, capital of China.
The Cuban chess player has 2,760 and 2,728 ELO points in classic and blitz games, respectively. There, he will play against tough opponents like Armenian Levon Aronian (2,805/2,850) who is the runner-up in the world ranking.
Other elite members to play in the WMG are Russian Alexander Grischuk (2,795/2,778) and Ian Nepomniachtchi (2,730/2,880), Azerbaijan Shakriyar Mamedyarov (2,743/2,824) and French Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2,766/2,777).
FIDE report highlights the presence of Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuck (2,735/2,720) and Ruslan Ponomariov (2,723/2,758) as well as Chinese Yue Wang (2,715/2,682).
Yue Wang won rapid games (20 minutes) a year ago and helped China to win the tournament with 9 gold medals, 7 silvers, and 5 bronzes.
In last edition, sports like bridge, go, checkers, and xiangqi —a sort of Chinese chess— were played and a dozen countries were also represented.
Leinier, who attended the 2011 games, ended 4th in rapid games, and closed 12th in Blitz and Basque systems, where every player engages in 2 simultaneous games.
Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil in Friendly Soccer Matches in the U.S.
The Ecuadorian soccer team travels to the United States to face Bolivia and Brazil in friendly matches, headed by interim coach, Sixto Vizuete.
The event will bring the Ecuadorian team face to face with the Bolivian squad next September 6th in Miami, where they are arriving today, and on September 9th they will play against Brazil in New Jersey.
The team convened by Vizuete late August is missing Antonio Valencia, of the British club Manchester United, and Jefferson Montero, of the also English club Swansea City.
According to the coach, both players asked not to be taken into account now because they are in the adaptation process to the European clubs.
In an interview on a radio station in Quito, Vizuete stated that his mission is to renew the Tricolor crew, that is why, for these friendly matches he called players who were not taken into account for Brazil 2014 World Cup by then-Manager Reinaldo Rueda.
