A leg injury sustained on Friday in Brussels will keep the Cuban jumper Jorge Hodelín out of the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, the most demanding event on the autumn athletics calendar, scheduled for next weekend in Budapest, Hungary.
The incident occurred during the first attempt of the Diamond League final in the Belgian capital, the last stop of the circuit, according to the official media outlet JIT. In that jump, Hodelín barely reached 6.81 meters —well below his usual level— and had to withdraw from the competition immediately.
His coach, Miguel Vázquez, was blunt in confirming the decision in the mentioned space: “We have already decided that he will not participate in the Ultimate World Championship next weekend.”
The 19-year-old from Sancti Spíritus, originally from Cabaiguán, arrived in Brussels as one of the world's top talents in his specialty following an extraordinary 2026 season.
The highlight of that journey was the U20 world record set on June 13 in Pierre-Bénite, France, with a jump of 8.46 meters, surpassing the previous mark of Italian Mattia Furlani (8.38 meters), as confirmed by World Athletics.
Throughout the Diamond League, he delivered high-level performances: he placed third in Rome with a jump of 8.18 meters, won the International Meeting of Papaflessia in Greece with a jump of 8.22 meters, and recorded 8.38 meters in Monaco, among other notable performances.
It was precisely his fourth place in Zurich —with 8.32 meters on August 28— that secured both his qualification for the grand final in Brussels and a spot in the Ultimate World, the inaugural tournament that brings together the top athletes from the international rankings.
Hodelín had also made his debut at the Indoor World Championship with a fourth place finish and a distance of 8.26 meters, confirming his status as a promising athlete in Cuban athletics, a discipline with a long tradition on the Island thanks to figures like Iván Pedroso and Juan Miguel Echevarría.
In Brussels, without the Cuban able to compete, the victory in the long jump went to the Jamaican Tajay Gayle with 8.46 meters on his final attempt, followed by the two-time world and Olympic champion Greek Miltiadis Tentoglou (8.40 meters) and the Swiss Simon Ehammer (8.23 meters).
Vázquez made the decision to prioritize the athlete's well-being over the sports outcome, in line with what JIT described as "one of the sacred principles of Cuban sports: that nothing is more important than the athlete's health."
The Ultimate World Championship will take place from September 11 to 13 in Budapest, and the Cuban team's priority will now be the recovery of its young long jump star before the upcoming commitments of the season.
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