Baseball
The 55th Cuban Baseball Championship is off this Tuesday having as leader defending champion Ciego de Avila and Granma as its new pursuer guard.
These 6th sub-series championships, which marked the beginning of the 2nd third of the preliminary phase, Ciego de Avila's Los Tigres swept Holguin in 3 challenges and improved to 15-3, and enjoys 2 games ahead taking the advantage of 2 setbacks of Industriales facing Cienfuegos.
Now, Los Azules from the capital were replaced by Granma, who against all odds exceeded Matanzas in 3 consecutive days.
The the Table is completed with Sancti Spiritus (11-7), Pinar del Rio (10-7), Villa Clara (10-8), Guantanamo and Las Tunas 9-8, Cienfuegos, Matanzas and Isla de la Juventud 9-9 each, then Holguin (8-10), Santiago de Cuba (7-11), Artemisa (5-13), Mayabeque (3-15) and Camaguey (2-16).
Series resumes on Wednesday with matches Pinar del Rio-Isla de la Juventud, Artemisa-Santiago de Cuba, Villa Clara-Industriales, Ciego de Avila-Granma, Camagüey-Mayabeque, Las Tunas-Matanzas, Cienfuegos-Holguin, and Guantanamo vs. Sancti Spiritus.
Chess
The GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier Lagrave, Mamedyarov Shariyar and Peter Svidler advanced to the 5th round or quarterfinals of the World Chess Cup, which is based in the city of Baku, capital of Azerbaijan.
The American Nakamura, 4th in the world ranking with 2814 Elo points, won 1.5-0.5 English Michael Adams, who beat Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez in the previous round.
Judo
The head of the International Judo Federation, Romanian Mariusz Vizer, will arrive next Thursday September 24th to Havana from Zurich, local INDER Press reported.
The visit of the maximum leader of judo worldwide will run until Monday 28th and will include exchanges with Cuban authorities and issues related to the organization of the Grand Prix of Havana, scheduled for January 2016.
Cuba organized the first Judo Grand Prix in June 2014 and the forthcoming edition will award points for the Olympic qualifiers in Rio de Janeiro 2016.
Football
The Nicaraguan national football team arrived in Havana to confront their local counterpart in two friendly caps.
The first one will be played at Havana's Pedro Marrero Stadium on Wednesday in the presence of the public while the 2nd will be on Friday behind closed doors, according to the Cuban Football Association.
Without the presence of some of its stars, the 22 players led by Henry Duarte will face next October 11th to Trinidad and Tobago and Costa Rica in December 9th and 16th of that month.
The Cuban team remains in position 113th of the FIFA world rankings, while Nicaragua is in 139th place.
