Cuba's 4x400 Women’s Team Wins World Championship

With their victory, the Cuban team was able to increase to 48 athletes the country's Olympic delegation to Tokyo-2020

Author: Sports news staff | informacion@granmai.cu

May 7, 2021 15:05:11

With a time of 3:28.41 minutes the Cuban women won the most important medal of their sporting careers. Photo: Granma

Party Central Committee First Secretary and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, tweeted his congratulations to Cuba’s female 4x400 meter quartet, who won the World Athletics Relay Championship, May 2, in Poland.

“Cuban women continue making history,” he wrote, “The 4×400 female relay team has won the gold medal at the World Championship held in Poland: an unprecedented event. Zurian Hechavarría, Rose Mary Almanza, Lisneidy Veitía and Roxana Gómez inspire us to dream big for the Tokyo Olympics.”

The women's 4x400-meter relay quartet achieved the best result in the last 20 years for Cuba in this specialty, when they took top honors at the World Relay Championship, held in the Polish city of Chorzow.

With a time of 3:28.41 minutes they won the most important medal of their sporting careers. In the semifinals, the Cuban team had given their rivals a strong signal, with a time of 3:27.90 for their four laps around the track, which won them a ticket to participate in the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Although the United States and Jamaica did not attend this competition, the result is impressive, since the Cuban women bested the well-respected teams from Poland, champions two years ago in the Japanese city of Yokohama, and Great Britain, fourth in the 2019 World Championship race in Qatar.

Poland's team with a time of 3:28.81 minutes and Great Britain (3:29.27) came in second and third place, respectively. The Netherlands was fourth with a time of 3:30.12 minutes.

With their victory, the Cuban team was able to increase to 48 athletes the country's Olympic delegation to Tokyo-2020, including 17 competing in athletics, 12 in wrestling, five in shooting and the same number in canoeing, with two each qualified for the pentathlon, table tennis and artistic gymnastics, as well as one representative in taekwondo, cycling and rowing.