Serguey Torres

Havana, May 18 (JIT)-- The stellar Serguey Torres is among the Olympic and world champions honoring the 2022 Racice Sprint Canoe World Cup 2022, scheduled to start on Friday in that Czech city.

"I feel in perfect sporting shape. I will compete in the C1-1000 meters, for which I have prepared well," he told JIT.

The challenge for the Spiritan idol is immense, if one takes into account that he is 35 years old, after winning the Olympic gold in Tokyo in the C2-1000.

Seguey will make his debut on Friday in the third elimination heat of the competition, which will be attended by more than 500 athletes from 50 countries and five continents. His teammate, José Ramón Pelier, will do so in the same distance in the first heat.

Pelier, who, according to his own words, is attending the Czech competition as a rookie, has his sights set on Paris 2024. What he does there in the first major competition of the 2022 season of the International Canoe Federation (ICF) will be of great help to him.

The C1-1000 is expected to be one of the most outstanding modalities, due to the confirmation of the first six places of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, headed by Brazil's gold medalist Isaquias dos Santos.

The Cuban delegation is on a training base in the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland, a nation that from May 26 to 29 will host the second stop of the World Cup of the sport of paddling in Poznan.

Serguey and Pelier will compete in both competitions, as well as in the C1-5000 meters. The latter will also compete in the C2-500 together with Tabiani Diéguez Álvarez.

Olympians Yarisleidi Cirilo and Katherin Nuevo will also represent Cuba in the C1-200m and 5000m. They will also compete in the tandem canoe at 500 and 200 meters.

In the kayak, Reinier Carrera, Robert Benítez and Yoel David will compete for the Island among men, and Yurieni Herrera, Camila Cuello, Yurisleidi Muñoz and Madelén Heredia for the women.

The competition will be attended by the five-time Olympic gold medalist from New Zealand, Lisa Carrington, and the gold medalists of Tokyo 2020 in the K2-1000 meters, Australians Tom Green and Jean Van Der Westhuyzen, according to the official website of the international entity.

The women's C2-500 will also put on a show with the combination of China's Olympic gold medalists Shixiao Xu and Mengya Sun, and bronze medalists and reigning world queens Liudmyla Luzan and Anastasiia Chetverikova of Ukraine.

The men's K4-500 will again be a battle between the Tokyo 2020 gold and silver medalists, namely Germany and Spain.

The Racice World Cup will start on Friday, May 20 and will end with the popular 5,000-meter races on Sunday afternoon.