Canoeing shone in Tokyo, Copenhagen and Cali, placing athletes among Cuba's best in 2021

Havana, December 21 (RHC)-- Canoeing closed 2021 with its outstanding performances at the Tokyo Olympic Games, the Copenhagen World Championship and the Junior Pan American Games in Cali, placing athletes among Cuba's best athletes.

In the Japanese multisport event, Serguei Torres and Fernando Dayán Jorge won the gold medal in the two-seater canoe (C-2) at 1,000 meters, and shortly after, in the World Championship in Denmark, they repeated the podium, but with the bronze medal.

Torres and Jorge won in Tokyo the fourth medal of Cuban canoeing in the Olympic Games. In Sydney 2000, Ledi Frank Balceiro (C-1 to 1000 m) and the duo of Ibrahin Rojas and Leobaldo Pereira (C-2 to 1000 m) were runners-up, and in Athens 2004, Balceiro and Ibrahin Rojas repeated the silver medal in the C-2 to 500 meters.

The World Cup booty of the largest of the Antilles included the silver and bronze medals of Yarisleidis Cirilo and Katherin Nuevo, in the C-2 200 and 500 meters, respectively.

Another good performance there was that of José Ramón Pelier, seventh place in the final A of the single seater (C-1) at 1,000 meters, a modality and distance in which he took first place in the final B of Tokyo.

An important and additional element is that Cirilo and Nuevo, sixth in the final A of the Japanese multisport event, became the first women medalists of Cuban canoeing at the world level.

From the continental competition for under 23-year-olds also came gold medals with Nuevo, in the 200-meter C-1 and Pelier, in the 1,000-meter C-1, and a bronze medal for kayaker Reinier Carrera, in the 1,000-meter single sculls (K-1).

The results of the annual survey of the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) and the circle of sports chroniclers, included the Torres-Jorge duo as the best in the non-individual event category, and the two among the 10 best of the year, as well as Cirilo, who was the best rookie.

The voting for the best Cuban juniors of 2021 has not yet taken place, but for sure canoeing will have a leading role as it happened among the seniors.

Pelier, Nuevo and Cirilo, who was replaced at the last minute after a knee injury by Erika Bárbara Cerza, another young woman who took over rowing the C-2 with Nuevo with little preparation time. This trio of newcomers should be among the chosen ones.

Undoubtedly, an outstanding performance of Cuban canoeists - canoeists and kayakers - facing the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador, the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile, in 2023, and the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

The gold medals won in Cali by Pelier and Nuevo guaranteed them tickets to the continental event in Chile, as well as the rest of the champions in each of the sports.