Baseball

With a stellar pitching of Norge Luis Ruiz and devastating offensive of 15 hits, including 2 homers, Cuba gave 11-1 knockout to Panama in the 2nd date of the Bolivar Winner Baseball Top in a packed stadium with over 10,000 fans, located in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

The catcher Maikel Lorenzo Quintana's homer of 2 runs and decisive Maikel Cáceres' grand-slam homer in the 5th, supported by Felix Isasi, Miguel Angel Fernández, and Roel Santos hits, led to the Cuban victory.

This Friday in the latest competitive day, Cuba will crash into Dominican Republic and Panama against Colombia.

And in more baseball news, Cuba will face off this Friday the host Mexico in the continuation of the 2nd round of the World Baseball Championship for players under 15 years old, after having broken the China Taipei's unbeaten pace record to beat them in closed range of 3-2, at the Teodoro Mariscal Stadium Mexican, city of Mazatlán.

The Cuban team deployed an unstoppable 8-hits offensive to support the solid work of starter Ramón Pérez, who scored his 2nd victory in this World Cup.

After this result, the United States remained the only unbeaten team to add its 7th hit with a 6-2 victory over Venezuela.

Boating

Cubans Sergey Torres and Rolexis Báez managed this Friday morning qualifying for the semifinals of the tandem canoe (C-2) at 200 meters modality at the World Championship of Canoe, based at the Krylatskoye Aquatic Center of the Russian capital, an event attended by more than 85 countries to be concluded on Sunday.

Torres and Baez had qualified on Thursday for the discussion of medals to 500 meters after finishing second ones in the semifinals with a time of 1:39.070, behind the winners, Romanians Liviu Dumitrescu and Victor Mihalachi.

Badminton

The Cuban Osleni Guerrero advanced to the quarterfinals of the Rio de Janeiro Grand Prix, after beating Mexican Arturo Hernández.

Guerrero, located in 57th place in the world rankings, won with scores of 11-7, 11-9 and 11-0, in just 19 min. play, and will face off Brazilian Daniel Paiola, who needed 5 sets to defeat the Italian Rosario Madaloni.

The duel between the Cuban and South American, 77th in the world rankings, will be this Friday and will be the 6th clash between the two, all won by Osleni.

The winner will advance to the semifinals. The Grand Prix of Rio is the 5th tournament of the year for the Cuban and is part of his preparation overlooking the World Championship, scheduled from the 25th to the 31st of this month in Denmark.

Volleyball

The Dominican Republic qualified for the 2015 Pan-American Games in Toronto, Canada, after beating Cuba --that closed 4th-- in the discussion for the bronze medal at the Centrobasket Tournament (M), which concluded in the Mexican city of Nayarit and won by the host quintet against Puerto Rico.

So, Dominicans, champions of the previous edition, managed to be included in the podium thanks to its 75-66 victory over Cuba, which did not qualify for the continental Toronto 2015.

In a tight match, the Dominican Captain Edward Santana, with 16 points and 8 rebounds, and Cuban Yoan Luis (12 points, 7 rebounds and 2 services), highlighted the most for both teams.

In the match for the gold, Mexico became champion by having closed 74-60 victory over Puerto Rico, with a great performance of NBA player Gustavo Ayón, who scored 16 points, 16 rebounds, 4 services, 2 blocks and stole 2 other balls.

So, the first 3 teams qualified to Toronto 2015, but the 4 semifinalists --México, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba-- also got their tickets to the 2015 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Monterrey.

And another volleyball news item says that Cuba's female team will face Canada on Friday at the beginning of the 3rd and final week of the preliminary stage and 2nd level of Volleyball Grand Prix, in a match that will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

After playing against the Canadians, Cubans will rival Peru on Saturday and will go against Argentina on Sunday in Group N.

Cubans appear in the basement of 2nd level with 1 point and 6 losses, while Peru with 2 wins and 4 setbacks, Argentina (4-1-5), and Canada (3-1-5) occupy positions 5th, 6th and 7th, in that order, an event led by the Netherlands with 16-6-0, and followed by Puerto Rico (14-5-1), and Poland 14-5-1).