Cuba will seek to include seven judokas in the Paris Olympic Games, an event that will take place between July 26 and August 11, according to the President of the Cuban Federation of this sport, Rafael Manso.
Recently six athletes participated in the Tokyo Grand Slam, the last event of the current year that awards points for the Olympic ranking. The big absentee was the star Idalys Ortiz, who at the beginning of the year will resume her international participation. Maylin del Toro (63 Kg), Idelamnis Gómez (70 Kg) and Lianet Cardona (78 Kg) traveled to the Japanese capital in the women’s event and Orlando Polanco (66 Kg), Iván Silva (90 Kg) and Andy Granda (+100 Kg) ) in the masculine.
“After the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, they took a few days of vacation and subsequently prepared for this strong event. The fundamental objective was to accumulate points for the ranking, something that only Idelamnis could not accomplish, as he felt bad after such a long trip and could not compete.”
Our judokas have continued to hold a training camp in Tokyo: “There they are training with the best athletes in the world, we have been in communication with the coaches and everything is going very well”.
At the end of January, the judokas will travel to Europe to continue their preparation for the Olympic Games. “The men will go to Hungary and the women to France, they will stay for more than two months and they will be moving to nearby countries that host the Grand Slams, such as Turkey and France itself. In April they will return to participate in the Opem in Varadero and the Pan American which will be in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.”
The National Judo Commissioner, Rafael Manso, commented that the objective is to include seven representatives to the event under the five rings of Paris. “This sport classifies by ranking, that is why it is so important to compete as much as possible.
We currently have 5 athletes in the classification zone, 3 men and 2 women. In the case of Orlando Polanco and Idelamnis Gómez, they are also in a position to get their places.”
