Cuban divers lead European competition

Harold Iglesias Manresa

MADRID has meant good luck and results for the Cuban synchronized platform diving duo José Antonio Guerra and Jeinkler Aguirre. In the Grand Prix’s fourth stop there, the two took the gold medal with 435.12 points, out-doing Mexicans Iván García and Germán Sánchez (432.24) and the Chinese favorites Chen Aisen-Jang Yian (428.10). This was almost an identical repeat of the 2010 event, when the Cuban divers scored 438.12.

Good scores, consistency in their jumps and polished technique give the Guerra-Aguirre duo reason to believe they can aspire to a medal in London.

Their qualifying average was 8.39 points - as compared to the Chinese pair’s 8.0 and 7.58 for García-Sánchez. Presenting a program of complex dives was the winning formula for the Cubans, who made dives on three occasions of over 80:83.52 in both the third and fourth attempts and 87.48 in the sixth.

This finish was very encouraging to the pair, not only because it confirmed their consistency after winning in Montreal (453.36), but also because it represents a serious challenge to the hegemony of the Chinese, barely a month prior to the test of fire at the London Olympics.

Hanser García closed out the Olympic preparatory tour with a silver medal, his fifth prize (1-3-1). His time of 49.10 seconds won him a second place finish in the 100-meter freestyle event during the Rome Sette Colli Trophy, only .01 seconds behind Sebastian Verschuren from Holland (49.09) and ahead of France’s Fabien Gilot (49.12). Hanser had his turbo going and lowered his time in the preliminary heat (49.46).

Another Cuban swimmer, Pedro Medel, finished fourth in the B final 200-meter backstroke, with a time of 2:02.52 minutes, behind Spain’s Aschwin Wildeboer (2:00.25) and Italians Luca Mencarini (2:00.74) and Michele Malerba (2:00.95).