Athletics

Denia Caballero and Ernesto Revé yesterday won bronze medals in the Diamond League of Athletics, which is taking place in Oslo, Norway's capital. It is the 5th time this event has taken place.

In the discus, Caballero climbed up on the podium in third place with a throw of 64.89m while his compatriot, Yaimé Pérez (63.21), finished in 4th position.

The women's competition was dominated by the Olympic and world champion, Sandra Perkovic (67.17) from Croatia, and Gia Lewis-Smallwood (65.77), from the U.S. took the silver medal.

Ernesto Revé came in third in the triple jump with a leap of 16.96m, while another Cuban representative, Lázaro Martínez (16.82), finished in 4th place.

Will Claye (17.41) and Christian Taylor (17.15), both from the United States, took gold and silver medals respectively.
 

Boxing

The 'Giraldo Córdova Cardín' boxing tournament is taking place beginning today and running until Sunday in the Ciudad Deportiva in Havana. It will be enhanced by more than 100 boxers from 18 countries, according to the organizers of the sporting event.

Foreign nations with the greatest representation are Venezuela, with 19 fighters, and China, with 15.

Also taking part are boxers from Russia, Ecuador, Morocco, Argentina, Chile, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Honduras, Sweden, Suriname, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Sri Lanka, Caymen Islands, Mauritius and the host nation, Cuba.

Among the boxers appear the Chinese mini flyweight, Lu Bin, 2012 youth world champion; the Russians, Artem Chebotarev, middleweight world bronze medalist; Sergey Kuzmin, the European number 2 superheavyweight; and Dmitry Bivol, national champion.

Also taking part are the Hungarian Miklos Varga (lightweight); welterweight Gabriel Maestre (Venezuela); Wen Yinhang, Chinese middleweight, runner up last year; Junior Zárate (Argentine flyweight); Carlos Góngora.

For Cuba, with 20 representatives in two teams, the presence of four members of the Cuban Domadores squad (recent winners of the 4th World Series) stand out.

World runner-up Arisnoidis Despaigne (69 kg), Arlen López (75), José Ángel Larduet (+91) and Norlan Yera (56) make up the 'Cuba Rojo' team together with Santiago Amador (49 kg), Leodán Núñez (52), Armando Martínez (60), Luis Oliva (64), Emmanuel Reyes (81) and Leinier Peró (91).

'Cuba Azul' team consists of Renter Rodríguez (49), Yordan Solllet (52), Jorge Luis Cordero (56), Pablo Vicente (60), Kevin Brown (64), Reinier Palacios (69), Emilio Correa (75), Anyelo Morejón (81), Frank Sánchez (91) and Yoandi Toirac (+91).
 

Chess

Cuban Grandmasters (GM) Leinier Dominguez and Lisandra Ordaz head the national men's and women's chess teams competing at the upcoming Chess Olympiad in Tromso, Norway, from Aug. 2nd through the 14th, the National Chess Commission said Tuesday.

Dominguez, No. 11 in the world ranking (with 2,760 Elo points), heads a team that includes GM Lazaro Bruzon (2,694), Yuniesky Quesada (2,642), national champion Isam Ortiz (2,588) and Yuri Gonzalez (2,557).

Ordaz (2,359) heads a team of GMs, including national champion Sulennis Pina (2,335), Yanira Vigoa (2,317), Maritza Arribas (2, 308) and Yaniet Marrero (2,327).

For Gonzalez and Vigoa, it will be their first time at such an event. For Arribas, it will be his 13th time, and it will be the eighth time for Dominguez, Bruzon and Pina.

The teams aim to improve on their past performances at the biennial international chess tournament, the national commission said in a statement.

Cuba garnered its best results at a Chess Olympiad at the 2004 Calvia games, in Spain, where the men's team took seventh place with 33.5 points.

The women's counterpart saw their best performance in Khanty- Mansiysk, Russia, in 2010, finishing in fourth place with 30 points.
 

FIFA World Cup

It is finally here -- today is the start of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil! There are a lot of fans here in Cuba who have been anxiously awaiting the World Cup. Here in the streets of Havana, everyone is talking about their favorite teams and soccer idols.

Around the world, companies, media outlets and individuals are celebrating on social networks the beginning of the Cup. Google has marked the launch of the FIFA World Cup with one of its customary doodles on its homepage.

Users who land on the search engine's homepage will see a soccer ball bounce onto the screen, in the green and yellow of host nation Brazil's official flag.

The first matches to be played in the tournament on Thursday will be between Group A teams Brazil and Croatia, at the Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo. Mexico and Cameroon; Spain and the Netherlands; and Chile and Australia will play on Friday.

In news related to the sporting event, today, the Swiss-based CIES Football Observatory predicts that Spain will win FIFA World Cup 2014, according to their in-depth study.

The CIES Football Observatory said it had taken an in-depth look at the career trajectory of all 32 teams due to lock horns in Brazil beginning today and running until July 13th.

The experts say: "This approach has allowed us to predict a hypothetical scenario for the outcome of the competition, suggesting that Spain will beat Brazil in the final, with Argentina in third place and France in fourth position."

CIES Football Observatory's experts, who apply econometric methods to all aspects of the game, number-crunched a vast haul of data.

They took into account league matches and goals during each player's career to date, as well as in the last two years, plus national team caps since 2012 and the total number of World Cup games ever played.

Based on that recipe for success, they combed through all eight World Cup groups to assess which were likely to reach the last 16 games.

They tipped Brazil to beat The Netherlands in the first knock-out round, while Japan would lose to Italy, France would oust Nigeria, and Portugal would dump out Russia.

In the four other last-16 games, the analysts said that Spain would defeat Croatia, England would elbow out Colombia, Ecuador would lose to Argentina, and that Germany would show Belgium the exit.

That would set up a series of tasty quarterfinals, with Brazil knocking out Italy, France beating Portugal, Spain defeating England, and Germany losing to Argentina.

Brazil would then go on to beat France in the semi-finals, while Argentina would lose to Spain.

Don't forget that the Red Fury or the Furia Roja, as the Spanish team is internationally known by its fans, is the current champion of the FIFA.

Nevertheless we'll see how it develops in the coming days, and we'll keep you updated on this and other sports related topics here at RHC.