havana/Yunier Fernández won the gold medal in table tennis this Friday, eighth in Cuba Paris Paralympic Games. With it, the athlete is the first Cuban to win the first medal in that discipline. This podium also represents for the Island, to date, the best performance from its delegation in the Paralympics. At the moment he is in 25th place in the medal table, the achievement that the ruling party originally intended to achieve, and he has collected five gold medals.
Fernández was crowned Paralympic champion after sweeping Britain’s Robert Davies 3 sets to 0 in the final of the MS1 category.
The 41-year-old from Artemisa far exceeded expectations for his involvement in this magazine. Although he is regularly on the podium at the Parapan Games of the Americas, where he has been the winner since the Rio de Janeiro 2007 edition and the champion in Lima 2019 and Santiago de Chile 2023, he has never to reach the top in the Paralympic Games.
“I knew for a long time that I would get it, but now I really believed it and went out focused to look for it,” he told her. said the paralympic athlete to the ruling party’s sports newspaper, Jitafter finishing the game.
“I knew a long time ago that I could get it, but now I really believed it and went out aiming to see it. “
The dispute for the top title pitted the Cuban against the British Robert Davies, who arrived with the precedent of ruling in the Paralympic Games of Rio de Janeiro 2016. However, this did not stop Fernández.
The clash for gold came as a result of the complete dominance of Cuba, who swept his rival and won three sets in a row. The parts of 14-12, 11-7 and 11-4 were faithful proof that the Cubans found the right way to counter the British strong points.
The last moments of the clash brought out the euphoria of Fernández, who shed tears on the stage located in the so-called City of Light. The paratennis player had perhaps the best performance of his career and, incidentally, he helped Cuba forget his performance in the last edition of Tokyo 2020, where he only managed to win six medals. A long way from London 2012, the best performance in history with 17 medals, 9 of which were gold.
Fernández’s path to the gold medal was not free of tough situations. The man from Artemisa began his journey at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games by facing the Egyptian Eslam Raslan, in the round of 32. The result of the match showed a score of 3 to 0 for Cuba, with scores 11-5, 11-5 and 11-5.
He then punched his ticket to the semi-finals in his next appearance against fellow Briton Thomas Matthews, whom he defeated 3 sets to 1 (11-5, 10-12, 11-4 and 11-9). However, the bitter test came against the Italian Federico Falco in the semi-finals.
The paratennis player competed for five sets against the Europeans (15-13, 11-6, 4-11, 10-12 and 11-2), but he was able to solve the problem -work and achieved the closest victory in his time at the Paralympic Games.
Fernández’s gold is added to the sprinter’s two Omara Durandthe long sweater Robiel Yankiel Sol and that’s the spear Guillermo Varona. In addition, the Island has two silver medals (those of athlete Yamel Luis Vives and shot putter Pablo Ramírez Barrientos) and one bronze (from javelin thrower Ulicer Aguilera).
This performance is a far cry from what he had in the Olympic Games in July, in which the Island won only nine medals, finishing 32nd in the classification, very far from the top 20 that was predicted by the Director of High Performance of the Sports Institute (Inder), José Antonio Miranda.
