Boxing
With the victory of Julio Cesar La Cruz during the qualifying segment of the V World Series of Boxing, Cuba won its 5th Olympic ticket.
The double monarch of the world coined his registration with 31 points that placed him among the 2nd light heavyweight, just after the Italian Valentino Manfredonia, who finished with 35 points and left the Croatian Hrvoje Sep with 28 points, his victim this weekend.
Previously, the fly Yosbany Veitía, light Lázaro Álvarez, light welterweight Yasnier Toledo and middleweight Arlén López, had already gotten their quotas for Cuba's Los Domadores to attend the Rio de Janeiro 2016 party.
In total, there are 17 assigned to this lid (2 of 52-81 kilos and 1 in 49, 91 and, more than 91), while other powers like Russia (3) Azerbaijan (1) and Kazakhstan (1) were below Cubans, although Ireland (2), Italy (1) and Croatia and Morocco (1) also secured tickets.
Thus, the Cuban staff took 42 units to lead the top of Group A and was the only undefeated team after 14 games because Italy's Thunder broke 3-2 the promises idyll of Kazakhstan's Astaná, king of Group B.
Likewise, the Cuban team secured its presence in Toronto-2015 Pan American Games to grab tickets for all categories and passed directly to the semifinals, where they will face the winner between Azerbaijan's Baku Fires and Mexico's Los Guerreros.
The Veracruz 2014 champions, Cubans Nivaldo Diaz and Sergio Gonzalez, won the title in the 1st phase of the NORCECA Beach Volleyball Circuit 2015, based in the Cayman Islands.
Last year, the Cuban duo failed to win in the Cayman Islands, but from that time were crowned in the following stages held in Guatemala, Mexico, and took silver and bronze in Cuba to lately close with another bronze at the closing stage in Trinidad and Tobago.
At the end of Cayman Islands, Cuban duo dominated 21-13 and 21-15 in just 33 min. the experienced Puerto Rican couple of Roberto Rodriguez and Erik Haddock.
For his part, Cuban women Lianma Flores and Leila Martinez, 2014 Veracruz queens and 1 medal winners of each color in the 2014 tournament, failed to reach the semi-finals after losing to the US couple of Julie and Brandie.
Judo
The men's team of Cuba won silver while women took bronze at the team event during the close of the Pan-American Judo Championships held in Edmonton, Canada, dominated again by Brazil in each sex.
The 1-4 defeat against the South Americans in the end led to the Cuban male team to the 2nd position after defeating Puerto Rico 4-1 and Mexico 5-0, while among women was surprise the 3-2 victory of Canadians over the favorite Brazilians; previously, the Canadians had exceeded the Cubans in the semifinals.
So, Brazil finished in 1st place with 9-7-1 ahead of Cuba (4-3-9), Canada (3-1-5) and the US (1-2-5).
The male branch was also dominated by Brazil with 6-3-0, followed by Cuba (1-3-2), Canada (1-0-4), Colombia (1-0-0) and Argentina (0-1-3).
Baseball
The Cuban slugger Alfredo Despaigne hit his 1st homer of the current Season in the 7-3 victory the weekend of Chiba Lotte Marines against Tohoku Rakuten, in the Japanese Baseball League (Nippon Professional Baseball, NPB).
Despaigne, 4th batter and left fielder, found 2 runners on and hit a resounding homer to starter Takahiro Norimoto to put his team ahead 4-2 in the 3rd episode.
The Cuban had the best day so far of its foray into his 2nd NPB Season as he has already accumulated 1 indisputable and 1 ticket to show a 233 (30-7) average with 4 runs scored and 4 RBIs in 8 games.
Despaigne hit 12 homers in the NPB last Season for an average of 1 every 13.42 at-bats.
For his part, the also Cuban Frederich Cepeda hit 222 in the Minor League Team (Ni-gun) of the Yomiuri Giants.
Chess
After a day off the World Team Chess Championship restarted in Tsaghkadzor. In the 6th round the leading teams of China and Cuba were noticed with victories.
In the hard struggle the Ukrainians took advantage over the team of Cuba. Due to Yuriy Kryvoruchko's victory the Ukrainians exceeded the opponent with the minimum score 2.5:1.5. The same score was in the match Israel-China 1.5:2.5. Here the winning point for Chinese was scored by Wei Yi.
The team of Russia took victory with the minimum score. It exceeded the team of India due to Sergey Karjakin's victory. The team of the USA took a confident victory in the confrontation Egypt-USA with the score 1:3, the match Armenia-Hungary ended in peace with the score 2:2.
After playing 6 rounds, the teams of Ukraine and China are still leading. In the 7th round this Monday will meet Russia-Armenia, Cuba-India, China-Ukraine, USA-Israel and Hungary-Egypt.
