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STOCKHOLM XL-GALAN MEET
Yarisley establishes new record • Ortega wins gold
medal
Harold Iglesias
Manresa
ONCE again rising to the occasion,
Yarisley Silva vaulted 4.78 meters in the XL-Galan
meet in Stockholm, Sweden, to finish the winter
European tour ranked number one in the world. Cuba’s
Orlando Ortega also took a title during the
competition, in the 60 meter hurdles.
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With her 4.78m
vault in Stockholm,
Yarisley’s moved into the number one
spot world-wide. |
The consistency of Yarisley’s
performance has been impressive - the pole vaulter
from Pinar del Río has competed six times in three
weeks, winning four gold medals, one silver and one
bronze, with an average vault of more than 4.70
meters.
Among female pole vaulters in the
Stockholm meet, Russia’s Anastasia Savchenko (4.70)
finished second, followed by Czech Jirina Svobodová
(4.64), while Holly Bleasdale from the UK vaulted a
mere 4.45 meters, far below her 4.77m record. She
finished fifth, ceding her number one spot in the
ranking to Yarisley.
Ortega dominated his heat, which
included those with the best times this season,
finishing ahead of China’s Wenjun Xie (7.68), while
his teammate Yordan O’Farrill followed suit in his
group with a 7.76 second time, good enough to earn
the third qualifying spot.
Cuba’s athletes were able to close
out the season on a high note in the Swedish
competition, during which other winners included
Jamaica’s Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce, in the 60 meters
(7.04 seconds) time; local favorite Michel Torneus
(8.20 meters in the long jump) and Galen Rupp from
the U.S. (7:30.16) in the men’s 3,000 meters, and
Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba (8:26.57) among women in
this event.
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