Cuban athletics will have a historic presence at the Diamond League Final 2026, which will take place on September 4 and 5 at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels, as part of the Allianz Memorial Van Damme.
In total, 10 athletes born in Cuba have qualified for the most important event of the regular season of the world circuit, as highlighted on social media by sports journalist Raúl Rodríguez.
Five compete under the flag of the Cuban Athletics Federation, three do so as independent athletes, and two represent the colors of Portugal and Italy.
For Cuba, Leyanis Pérez and Liadagmis Povea will compete in the women's triple jump, Lázaro Martínez in the men's triple jump, Jorge Hodelín in the long jump, and Roxana Gómez in the 400 meters.
Pérez arrives as one of the standout figures of the competition after a dominant season: she is a three-time world champion in triple jump, with titles at the 2025 Outdoor World Championships in Tokyo (14.94 m), the 2025 Indoor World Championships in Nanjing (14.93 m), and the 2026 Indoor World Championships in Toruń (14.95 m). Furthermore, she shares the circuit lead in her specialty with 28 points alongside Senegalese athlete Saly Sarr.
Hodelín, for his part, secured his spot in the final after finishing fourth in Zurich with 8.32 meters, just one centimeter below the podium.
The three independent athletes who will also be in Brussels are Davisleydi Velazco (triple jump), Reynier Mena (200 meters), and Kendry Menéndez (110 meter hurdles). Velazco is in third place in the women's triple jump standings of the Diamond League with 27 points, while Menéndez is ranked seventh in the 110 meter hurdles.
The group is completed by two athletes competing under different flags: the triple jumpers Pedro Pablo Pichardo, the Olympic champion representing Portugal, and Andy Díaz, who represents Italy. Díaz arrives as the current indoor world champion and the European champion of Birmingham 2026, where he jumped 18.15 meters, the fourth-best mark in history for the event.
The triple jump is once again the showcase of athletics on the island: six of the 10 qualifiers are competing in this event —Pérez, Povea, Velazco, Martínez, Pichardo, and Díaz— confirming the continued prominence of a school that remains at the forefront of the world's elite in jumping events.
The Brussels final, which in 2026 will celebrate the 50th edition of the Memorial Van Damme, will distribute 2.24 million dollars in prize money, the highest purse in the 17-year history of the circuit.
Each discipline will award between $60,000 and $100,000, and individual winners can take home up to $60,000. In addition to the prize money, the champion of each event will receive the Diamond Trophy and direct access to the Ultimate World Championships of World Athletics.
The presence of 10 athletes born in Cuba, even though they are currently following different sports paths, once again highlights the influence of the Cuban athletics school in the international elite, especially in jumping events.
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