The Cuban pole vaulter Yarisley Silva became world champion in the last day of the indoor championships held at the Polish city of Sopot. Yarisley secured the gold medal for being the only athlete to surpass in the first attempt the bar at 4.70 meters high, as the other three finalists surpassed that mark did it after failing once or twice. The next height at which the bar was lifted to (4.75m) turned out to be elusive to all, including the outdoor 2012 champion, Jennifer Suhr, who had resigned 4.70m.
It was a competition where the world’s leading exponents of the pole participated. Besides Yarisley and Suhr, between the twelve athletes in the final were Brazilian Fabiana Murer , the German Silke Spiegelburg , British Holly Bleasdale and Polish Anna Rogowska. Ultimately none of them accompanied the Cuban on the podium, as the silver medals (two were given since they finished with identical results) corresponded to the Russian Anzhelika Sidorova and Czech Jirina Svoboda.
Silva, born in the province of Pinar del Río accumulated a single failure before her winning 4.70m, who was also her best of the season. After resigning the initial 4.30m, she began her jumping sequence consecutively beating the 4.45m and the 4.55m. For the next height, 4.65m, she to do it in her second attempt, which meant greater competitive pressure, as six other athletes had flown over that mark in the first jump. Once again, she proved to be a pole vaulter able to prevail at zero hour, when she flew over 4.70 in the initial attempt.
With this title in indoor Sopot 2014, the disciple of Alexander Navas, maintained her upward path in the world of pole vault. Gold winner in the Pan American games in Guadalajara 2011, a year later at the London Olympics she was runner-up and in the outdoor world championship, held in Moscow in 2013, she won the bronze medal. In her first foray into a world indoor event (Istanbul 2012), she had finished in seventh place with 4.55m.
The day also included two other medals for the small Cuban delegation (six athletes) who participated in the event. The triple jumpers Ernesto Revé and Pedro Pablo Pichardo achieved silver and bronze respectively in their specialty. Revé stretched up to 17.33m in his second jump, a leap that kept him as leader of the event until the last round, when the Russian Lyudman Adams managed to exceed it by just four centimeters: 17.37m, valid for the universal title. Worth noting that, after a foul on his third attempt, Revé could not jump again, apparently injured or suffering from any ailment. Meanwhile, Pichardo also secured the third place in the last round with 17.24m.
In the overall standings Cuba finished as seventh with a title and as many silver and bronze medals. By points, it finished twelfth.
Author
Daniel A. Fernández
