All posts by JaimeM

Cuban Sports

The Paris Olympiad was very competitive

In the invincible arms of Mijaín, the flag arrives today at the Homeland

The Paris Olympiad was very competitive, with 63 flags at the top of the award masts, at least once, and 91 countries entered in the list of medals

Author:  | informacion@granma.cu

august 12, 2024 13:08:56

Photocomposition with photos by Ricardo Lopez Photo: Ricardo López Hevia

Paris.— There is rarely a clearer image of the differences between the rich and the poor world than that seen in the Olympic Games.
If you take the medal table of Paris-2024, or any other of the previous events, and look at the first pavilions, you will notice that it looks more like a meeting of the G20 or one of the rich nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
That is why the first gold medals in the history of St. Lucia, Dominica and Guatemala are so valuable, even though they came 124 years after the start of these Games.
The three Brazilian, two Cuban, Ecuadorian and Chilean titles, those won by the African countries, the four silver medals won by Mexico and the Colombian medals are worth a great deal. They make us from the South sit in that luxurious hall, despite the fact that we are denied the business and technological development of the sport of the great powers.
And they are worth more, because the Paris Olympiad was very competitive, with 63 flags at the top of the award masts, at least once, and with 91 countries that registered in the list of medals.
These are also reasons to celebrate today, in the Homeland, our athletes – medalists or not – who will carry, in the invincible arms of Mijaín López Núñez, the lone star flag that they defended with so much fervor and love.

Venezuela verses Imperialism

Venezuela, When violence is a mask for impotence and illegitimacy

When violence is a mask for impotence and illegitimacy

In a joint communiqué, nearly a thousand organizations call for respect for the life, health and safety of all people, while condemning the acts of vandalism and violence committed against them

Author:  | informacion@granmai.cu

august 5, 2024 09:08:13

CARACAS, Venezuela.—A total of 924 Human Rights organizations and movements from different parts of the world signed a communiqué in which they recognize “the democratic legitimacy and authority of the National Electoral Council and, consequently, the decision to award the victory of this process to President Nicolás Maduro.”
The document signed, among others, by representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Spain, United States, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Serbia, urges to respect the life, health and safety of all people, while condemning the acts of vandalism committed by supporters of the extreme right, defeated at the polls.
In this sense, the Attorney General of the Republic, Tarek William Saab, informed that there is no arrest warrant against María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, main promoters of the terrorist guarimbas of the last days.
“There is a general investigation that has had as a direct effect the arrest of people burning public headquarters with people inside,” and added that whoever makes a call to facts linked to acts of terrorism will be arrested.
In the exhortation for an atmosphere of peace to reign, “a sincere appeal to all parties to seek the truth, to exercise moderation, to avoid any kind of violence, to solve conflicts through dialogue, to take into account the true good of the population and not partisan interests,” Pope Francis made yesterday in favor of Venezuela, after praying the Sunday Angelus, in St. Peter’s Square.

Cuban Sports

He’s Known as ‘El Terrible’—and He Might Be the Greatest Olympic Athlete of All Time

He’s Known as ‘El Terrible’—and He Might Be the Greatest Olympic Athlete of All Time

Story by Robert O’Connell, Jared Diamond

PARIS—With a list of accomplishments longer than a swimming pool, Michael Phelps has a strong claim to be considered the greatest athlete in Olympic history. After all, his 23 gold medals is more than twice as many as anyone else.

But it turns out there’s another athlete, barely known to most of the sports world, who might have a better claim to that title. He stands at 6-foot-5, weighs about 290 pounds and has dedicated his life to overpowering some of the strongest men on the planet.

His name is Mijaín López—and he might be the most dominant Olympian of all time.

López is a 41-year-old Greco-Roman wrestler from Cuba who seems less like an athlete than a tall tale: as solid as a mountain, as ungraspable as air. He can’t match Phelps’s overall medal count, but he looks set to achieve one feat that neither Phelps nor anyone else at the Games has ever done before. With a victory in Tuesday’s match against Chile’s Yasmani Acosta, López would become the first person ever to win gold in the same individual Olympic event five times.

He’s Known as ‘El Terrible’—and He Might Be the Greatest Olympic Athlete of All Time© Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

“To be able to do that, it’s unheard of,” said Phelps, one of the small group of athletes to have won four times in a row. “There’s a reason why no one’s ever done it before.”

To the people unfortunate enough to have stepped into the ring with López, the remarkable streak of medals is just the beginning of his legend. Forget losing a match or settling for silver—entering the Paris Games, it had been more than a decade since he’d so much as given up a single point at the Olympics. His last gold medal, in Tokyo, came when his final opponent chose to stop competing, standing to one side and letting López raise his arms in victory.

Cuban Sports

Mijaín López will seek today his fifth consecutive Olympic title

History repeats itself when the great ones write it

Today Mijaín López is going to make the legend of an unbeatable man who has won the hearts of his people and the world grow

Author:  | informacion@granma.cu

august 6, 2024 08:08:02

Photo: Ricardo López Hevia

Paris. — He did not come to his sixth Olympic Games out of vanity, nor to bask in his pedigree. He is here because he does not get tired of going out with Cuba in the middle of his vast chest.
Mijaín López will seek today his fifth consecutive Olympic title, which would be an unprecedented feat for the Olympic world. Until today, one of the same sport, Japanese gladiator Kaori Icho has four diadems, achieved from Athens-2004 to Rio de Janeiro-2016.
Al Oerter, an American discus player, also has four triumphs between the Melbourne-1956 and Mexico-1968 editions.
No one has ever gone further in the same individual event, having only one podium chance. Mijaín, in fact, is the first to try.
“My five medals are not mine, they belong to my people, my parents, my family, my friends, my coaches. To succeed, you just have to love what you do, defend it and respect the people who approach you, even if they are your opponents,” he told the press last night.
He also announced that he does not know how it will be, “because I love the fight obsessively, but tomorrow (today) I’m done.”
He does it surrounded by affection for what he has done and for his nobility, the one that took from the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel, a sensitive message to the Giant of Herradura: “Mijaín’s fifth is going”, he published in X, “and the whole Cuba is accompanying him. Dear Mijaín, you are already a legend, living history. A hug from all your people.”
Mijaín stood, the day before, at the threshold of the sacred temple of the Olympic deities, on the same day that another of that species, Armand Duplantis, touched the sky with his world record of 6.25 meters in the pole vault, so that Paris changed French for their language, because last night, here, they only talked about them.
Today is August 6, the same date on which Mijaín López won his second gold medal, 12 years ago. History repeats itself when the great ones write it.