Toronto 2015

The Cuban delegation to the Toronto 2015 Pan-American Games will be made up of 71 athletes, headed by sports stars Pedro Pablo Pichardo and Yarisley Silva, the local National Federation of Athletics announced today.

Pichardo, national record holder in the triple jump and owner of the best mark of the year with 18.08 meters set a month ago in Havana, will be one of the greatest attractions of the Canadian meeting to be held next July 10th to the 26th.

Silva, world indoor holder in Sopot-2014, will defend in Toronto the title achieved in Guadalajara-2011 and the continental record of 4.75 meters, achieved in the Mexican meeting.

Sahily Diago and Rose Mary Almanza will be competing as well in the continental competition in the 800 meters and Dailín Belmonte in the marathon.

In the launch area, will be discus throwers Denia caballero and Yaime Pérez together with hammer thrower Yirisleydi Ford.

Among men it is expected a good result of the hurdlers (110 meters) Yordan Ofarrill and Jhoanis Portilla, of the hammer thrower Roberto Janet and the discus thrower Jorge Fernández.

Chess

Cubans GMs Leinier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzon drew between them during the beginning of Capablanca Memorial Chess Tournament with its stage at Habana Libre hotel in the Cuban capital.

Leinier (2746 Elo points) and Bruzon (2677) signed peace after 26 moves of a Spanish opening as sole exception of what happened in the Elite group.

In the other matches of this group, the Ukrainian Pavel Eljanov (2718) and Chinese Yu Yangyi (2715) beat Russians Ian Nepomniachtchi (2720) and Dmitry Andreikin (2718), respectively.

The debutant Yangyi defeated Nepomniachtchi in 79 moves of a Spanish opening and Eljanov did the same against Andreikin in 35 moves of a Grunfeld defense.

Meanwhile, there were 4 winners in the Premier group, including the Cuban GM and national holder Isam Ortiz (2572), perpetrator of Cuba's Ermes Espinosa (2504).

The other winners were the local Yusnel Bacallao (2 530) and the Polish Jan Krzysztof Duda (2 610) and Kamil Miton (2 604) who beat Cubans Yuri González (2 550), Yuniesky Quesada (2 647) and Peruvian Emilio Córdova (2 609), in that order while German Vitaly Kunin (2579) and Cuban Carlos Hevia (2535) drew in the remaining game of this pool.

Today, Leinier will face Nepomniachtchi and Bruzon will rival Andreikin, while the other match of the Premier group will be between Eljanov and Yangyi.

Americas Cup

Brazilian soccer star Neymar will test the aspirations of Colombia today in Chile-2015 Americas Cup while attempting to reassert itself at the top of Group C of the competition.

This unique clash on Wednesday will mark the fate of Colombians in the lid, after its surprise 0-1 reverse against Venezuela during its 1st outing. For its part, Brazil beat Peru 2-1 during its debut.

In other yesterday's results, Argentina beat Uruguay 1-0 and Paraguay won by the same score to Jamaica in Group B.

So far, the Chilean Arturo Vidal is the tournament leading scorer with 3 goals, followed by his compatriots Eduardo Vargas and Sergio Aguero, both with 2.

Cuba and Japan Strengthen Sport Links

Cuban ambassador to Japan Marcos Rodríguez recently met in Tokyo with Shinya Yamamuro, president of the Mariners of Chiba Lotte professional baseball team to strengthen sport links.

According to a press release from the Cuban diplomatic mission, Rodriguez visited the headquarters of the team, where he had a meeting with Yamamuro and the rest of the group's directive in which both parts gave a follow-up to the current fruitful working relations with this team and expressed the existing potentialities to continue advancing in the mutual sports relationship.

In this Japanese professional baseball team plays since 2014 the famous Cuban slugger Alfredo Despaigne, who was also present at the meeting.

Since January this year, 5 Cuban baseball players have been hired by teams of the professional Japanese league for the 2015 Season. According to Jorge Polo, vice-president of the Cuban Sports Institute, those contracts are targeted on the preparation of Cuban athletes.