Three attempts to pass over a certain height: that is the essence of any competition of vertical jumps, high jump or pole vault. Using this as a reference, we talked to Yarisley Silva, silver medalist in London Olympic Games, national record holder and among the best sportspersons in Cuba in 2012. She is getting ready for her debut in the winter season. We are already in a new year, let’s talk goals…

The season that just ended was a lavish one for Yorgelis Rodriguez, a 17-year old girl from Guantanamo province who already ranks as the greatest promise in combined events for women in Cuba. The disciple of Gersin Luis Castro reached 5966 points to be champion in heptathlon during the 14th World Junior Athletics Championships held in Barcelona on July 2012. Backed by her constancy, Yorgelis was recognized as the 2012 Female Athlete of the Year (junior category) of Cuba. On her performance, the award and her immediate aspirations she said:

Late but fully deserved Cuba increases by one its medal harvest at the London Olympic Games. The discus thrower from westernmost Pinar del Rio province Yarelis Barrios will receive her bronze medal after the doping case of silver medallist Russian Darya Pischalnikova was confirmed.

Yipsi Moreno, though she remains active, has already written her name on the list of most famous hammer throw specialist in history. She is an authority concerning consistency and stability at the highest level. Within her extensive career you can find two gold and two silver medals in the same number of World Championships. She added to that harvest two Olympic subtitles (Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008), in four Games.

I remember Athens, when Yumileidis Cumbá won a deserved gold medal after being confirmed the breach of Russian Irina Korzhanenko in Women Shot Put from those Games when the Olympics returned to its birthplace.

Keshorn Walcott and his javelin produced the most unexpected story in the Olympic Games athletics. The Trinitarian transcended as the youngest champion in this discipline when, at the age of 19, he was crowned champion with an 84.58m throw. The title was the second Olympic gold in the history of his native Trinidad and Tobago, and the first in the last 36 years since Hasely Crawford’s 100m victory in Montreal ’76.

Osleni Guerrero finished as runner-up in the 2012Pan American Badminton Tournament, held in Lima, Peru, a silver medal that is a worthwhile addition to his new career that also includes the subtitle in the Guadalajara 2011Pan American Games. The young Havana city boy is the best Cuban ever in the world ranking, currently placing 121 with a total of 13,250 points (updated October 18, 2012). These days, when he just turned 24, he agreed to talk with Oncuba: Where did you start practicing this sport?

It is a fact; Cuban women have opened themselves up a space in the complicated world of international pole vault. The most serious references came in late 2011 thanks to the excellent performances by Yarisley Silva in competitions throughout the globe class and became stronger when that same athlete won the solver medal at the London Olympic Games.

One day, when he was 8 he got into a brawl in his school, and luckily that day Professor Jorge Luis Fermin Rodriguez (his first coach) was passing by and at the suggestion of his teacher, invited Ramirez to practice boxing.

The star of pole vault, Sergei Bubka, was in Cuba, competed and lost. Yes, this was exactly as it reads, and I admit that I was also amazed when a friend (to whom I am thankful for the greatest part of the statistics in this publication) told me about the totally unheard-of event. It happened in Santiago de Cuba, in the summer of 1980, when a competition called “Olympic Hopes” has held, with attendance of youngsters below 18 years from the socialist countries.

Ruth Beitia Vila, despite being 33 and having announced her retirement, just got the best season of her long career as an athlete. In 2012, the Spanish high jumper became European champion in the Helsinki Championships last June and was fourth in the Olympic Games in London. In the British capital, Ruth crossed the barrier of 2 meters, a height she had never reached in major competitions and is just 2 centimeters shy of her best performance ever: 2.02m on August 4, 2007 in San Sebastian.

In London, the feminine vaulting pole emerged from the storm with powerful light to bring us Cubans an afternoon of peace and national joy. On August 6, Yarisley Silva gave our Island’s athletics team its best result with a silver medal – the first medal to be obtained by a Latin athlete in Olympic Games in this sport.