Daily Cooper
Havana, Jun 24 (RHC) - The young runner Daily Cooper got an Olympic ticket for Paris-2024, by winning the 800m at the Puma Meeting in Guadalajara, Spain, with a record for the event and a personal best, on a day in which Leyanis Perez broke the barrier of 15.00m in the triple jump, although with the wind at her back.
With a time of 1:58.61 minutes, Cooper became the 50th Cuban athlete to obtain a place in the next Olympic Games and the tenth in athletics.
"I am fulfilling half of my dream. Now with being an Olympic finalist I would continue to advance quite a bit and I would feel happy," said Cooper (22 years old), in statements to Radio Habana Cuba.
She revealed that prior to the event she felt "a little nervous, because it was like the last bullet, it was all or nothing".
"But my purpose was to qualify for the Olympic Games and I went out to give the maximum on the track. "I knew I could make the mark for Paris because I had trained for it and had been running steady for several races," she added.
She thanked her teacher Pedro Tamayo, the Cuban athletics directors who sent her to a high altitude training base in Mexico and arranged several competitions, and the workers of her school, the ESFAAR Giraldo Córdova Cardín.
At the meeting in the Spanish city, double world triple jump medalist Leyanis Pérez also shone, braking the 15.00m barrier for the first time, although the record could not be homologated due to headwind (+2.3 m/s), higher than what is allowed to homologate the results.
The bronze medalist of the outdoor world championships in Budapest 2023 and runner-up in the indoor world championships in Glasgow 2024, flew to 15.16m in the presence of the queen of the event, Yulimar Rojas, who is recovering from a surgery and attended the competition as a guest of honor.
Ricardo Ponce's pupil confirmed herself as one of the candidates for the podium in Paris, by achieving an impressive sequence without faults, with jumps between 14.80 and 14.62.
Her escort this time was also Cuban Liadagmis Povea (14.81 m), in her reappearance on the track after recovering from an injury.
Other winners for the Cuban delegation at the Fuente de la Niña Stadium in Guadalajara were triple jumper Lázaro Martínez, runner Yoandys Lescay and discus runner Silinda Morales.
Martínez, world indoor champion in Belgrade 2022, won in the triple jump with 17.39 m, although with the wind at his back, while Lescay reigned in the 400m with 45.40 sec, his best mark of the season.
The discus thrower Morales barely had any opposition and took first place with 59.09m.
In other results, long jumper Hayla Gonzalez was second with 6.63m, triple jumper Cristian Napoles, world bronze medalist in Budapest 2023, finished sixth with 16.74 m, sprinters Yunisleidy Garcia and Reinaldo Espinosa finished fifth in the 100m, with times of 11.30, season mark, and 1013, respectively, Harlyn Perez seventh in 100m with 10.29, season mark, and Aniel Molina seventh in long jump, with a poor 7.48.
Independent of the Cuban Federation, Lester Lescay also stood out, achieving the best mark of his career, 8.35 (+0.9), surpassing the minimum of 8.27 to be in Paris.
