Cuban athletes Jordan Díaz, Pedro Pichardo, and Andy Díaz won gold, silver, and bronze medals in Paris for Spain, Portugal, and Italy in the triple jump final, where paradoxically the representative from the Caribbean island, Lázaro Martínez, went home empty-handed.
The four Cubans had advanced on Wednesday to the grand final of the men's triple jump at the Paris 2024 Olympic athletics, although the standout performances came from favorites Pedro Pablo Pichardo and Jordan Díaz, representing Portugal and Spain, respectively.
However, this Friday Jordan Díaz, just 23 years old, dethroned Pichardo with a jump of 17.86 meters (17.84 meters), who was the reigning Olympic champion.
Andy Díaz took the bronze with a jump of 17.64 meters.
Martínez, the only representative of Cuba, finished in eighth place in the final of this discipline with a jump of 17.34.
The winners are part of a group of 21 Cubans competing in Paris 2024 under different flags, amid the crisis of sports in Cuba.
In 2021, Jordan Díaz decided to erase the possibility of competing in the Tokyo Olympic Games and left the Cuban training camp during a training tour in Spain.
Many were surprised, because the decision was not easy, but definitely the young triple jumper had his plan laid out and it involved waiting and conserving his strength to shine in Paris 2024. The coach of this intrepid young man is also Cuban, Iván Pedroso.
That same year, Andy Díaz distanced himself from the sports movement on the island, who, without the media spotlight of other athletics stars, prepared to shine in the triple jump final in Paris 2024 representing Italy, the country where he became a citizen.
Pichardo, for his part, left the Cuban delegation in Stuttgart, Germany, in April 2017, to become the world champion in the triple jump at Tokyo 2020.
With a service record full of glory, the Cuban nationalized Portuguese can be classified as one of the best triple jumpers in the history of world athletics.
His achievements back him up: Olympic gold (Tokyo 2020), two-time world champion (Eugene 2022 and Belgrade indoor 2022), European champion (Munich 2022), and two-time continental indoor champion (Torun 2021 and Istanbul 2023).
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