Santo Domingo.– Leyanis Pérez fulfilled her duties as flag bearer and gifted the Cuban delegation a gold medal this Monday. While expected, the victory still thrilled the Cubans present at the Félix Sánchez Olympic Stadium, as well as the thousands who, despite the country’s energy crisis, sought alternative ways to follow the performance of our newly crowned world champion.
On the first day of athletics, inside the stadium, Leyanis dominated the triple jump with a mark of 14.78 meters, followed by her fellow Pinar del Río native, Liadagmis Povea, who jumped 14.71 meters, her best of the year.
“It wasn’t a competition of record-breaking marks, but I’m very happy with the result and with having fulfilled my responsibility of bringing home the gold medal for Cuba. I came with the flag and I return to my homeland with my duty accomplished.” “Now this is just the beginning for us,” said the Central American champion.
Athletics also gave us the sensational victory of Anisleidis Ochoa in the 5,000 meters. “The Polish woman,” as her teammates call her, paced herself with tremendous skill to claim her first Central American and Caribbean title.
Cuba has shone in these games, driven by its wrestlers, who contributed a total of ten titles to the delegation. Judo was not far behind, with six crowns.
Women’s hockey gave us one of the most memorable performances, defeating Mexico for the gold medal in a penalty shootout. The Cuban women went through the tournament without conceding a goal and secured their place at the Pan American Games in Lima. Their male teammates will also be competing for the gold medal today.
Cuba closed out Monday with more than thirty gold medals and third place in the regional medal count. In the final stretch of the Games, the medal haul will continue to grow, with more awards in athletics, the start of weightlifting, canoeing, and the highly anticipated boxing finals.
The Island has delivered in Santo Domingo. Our athletes have overcome the hardships the Cuban people face today and continue to uphold the tradition and sporting excellence of a nation under siege that will surely prevail.

A party is going on these days on the beaches of Havana’s coast, with the celebration of the First Summer Sea and Beach Sports Festival, which will be held until August 13.
The inauguration took place at the Gerardo Abreu Fontán Social Worker’s Circle, in the municipality of Playa, and will also see action at the Félix Elmuza and Otto Parellada entities, and at the Villa Bacuranao and Guanabo beaches.
The activities are aimed at healthy leisure and recreation for the Cuban family during the summer season, and will include volleyball, field hockey, wrestling, badminton and soccer, all in their sand version, as well as sailing, apnea, aquathlon and other modalities.
The Festival will not only have a sports section, but will also be useful for technical training, with workshops and educational spaces.
The program, sponsored by Inder, responds not only to the promotion of a new summer initiative, but also to the precept of sport for all, always defended by our social project.
Sport is making a comeback in this summer 2025, along with other options for enjoyment, and as a platform for physical wellbeing and social cohesion.
In addition to the sports activities, ecological workshops, artistic presentations and spaces for local art have been announced, in order to guarantee options for all ages and social sectors.
The project will also be valid to promote environmental care, as it will develop sanitation and cleaning initiatives in the natural scenarios chosen as venues.
The first edition of this event will conclude with a tribute to our greatest athlete, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, on the 99th anniversary of his birth; a well-deserved recognition to the man who put all his efforts to bring ideas like this to the people.

Yesterday was a different experience at the Antonio Maceo Monument Complex in San Pedro. The emblematic site, located in the municipality of Bauta, in the province of Artemisa, served as a stage for the future of Cuban sports to receive the banner that will accompany them in the upcoming Junior Pan American Games in Asuncion.
Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh and five-time Olympic champion Mijaín López, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, handed over the national ensign to wrestler Yainelis Sanz and rower Roberto Carlos Paz, escorted by Yisnoly López (canoeing) and Emmanuel de la Rosa (weightlifting), in a ceremony that evoked patriotic feelings in the place where the lieutenant general of the Liberator Army Antonio Maceo fell in combat.
In the presence of Yuniasky Crespo Vaquero, head of the Department of Attention to the Social Sector of the Central Committee of the Party, the taekwondoca Elianet María Crespo, and the beach volleyball player, Eblis Verane, laid a wreath in the exact place where Maceo and his aide Francisco Gómez Toro fell in combat.
The 231 talented young people who make up the Antillean delegation were summoned to defend with dignity, and with Maceo’s intransigence, the patriotic colors in each of the competition scenarios.
In Yainelis Sanz’s opinion, “being the Cuban flag bearer represents a great honor and an additional motivation to add my second title in these competitions. We know that the challenge ahead is great, but we have trained hard to achieve the best possible performance,” she told Granma.
On the other hand, the president of Inder, Osvaldo Vento, stated that “we are happy with the representation we are going to have in these Games. In the midst of a very complex scenario, the Revolution has allocated valuable resources for the preparation of our athletes. We cannot create false expectations, but we know that our athletes will give their all for Cuba in Asunción,” he said.
Asunción-2025 will be an ideal scenario to evaluate the Island’s sports reserve and achieve the highest number of qualifiers for the Lima-2027 Pan American Games. Those are the fundamental objectives, confirmed to this newspaper by José Antonio Miranda Carrera, general director of High Performance of Inder.
Cuba will only participate in 56% of the 336 events called, due to the impossibility of covering the entire critical route in most of the specialties. In the Cali-Valle-2021 edition, 29 gold medals were obtained, which meant a 13.6% of effectiveness, given that there were 212 competitors. A better parameter than Colombia (12.6%, with 386 members) and Mexico (12%, with 378).
This time, the studies of opponents and positions in the ranking show that the greatest potential to bring gold medals are centered on athletics, canoeing, wrestling, judo, weightlifting and rowing, with taekwondo, fencing, volleyball, beach volleyball, diving and table tennis, with real possibilities of climbing the podium of awards.
The political-cultural gala was also attended by Meyvis Estévez Echavarría, first secretary of the UJC National Committee, and the president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, Roberto León Richards.