4 Cuban athletes will compete in the European Athletics Championship

August 15, 2022

The European Athletics Championship begins today, Monday, at the Olympic Stadium in Munich, Germany, where athletes of Cuban origin will compete representing their respective European nations. On the championship's entry lists appear Yasmani Copello (Turkey), Alexis Copello (Azerbaijan), Abdel-Kader Larrinaga (Portugal) and Olympic and world champion Pedro Pablo Pichardo (Portugal).

The overwhelming favorite to win the men's triple jump is, without a doubt, Pedro Pablo Pichardo. Established as the world's best triple jumper currently, Pichardo has achieved the Olympic and world titles consecutively, approaching 18 meters in the achievement of both medals.

Furthermore, the native of Santiago de Cuba is the leader of the current season with 17.95 meters jumped in Eugene last July. This will be the Cuban-Portuguese athlete's first foray into this type of continental outdoor competition, who clinched the title at the 2021 Indoor European Championship.

In the triple jump, experienced Alexis Copello will also compete for Azerbaijan. The pupil of Cuban coach Iván Pedroso has a best season mark of 16.81m and comes off winning silver at the Islamic Solidarity Games. At 37 years old, Copello will seek to repeat the podium in Munich just as he did at the last 2018 edition, where he took the silver medal, and at the 2021 indoor edition, in which he finished second behind Pichardo.

On the other hand, on the track, Olympic medalist in the 400 meters hurdles, Yasmani Copello, from Turkey, will attempt once again to be on the podium after being continental champion in 2016 and silver medalist in 2018. The Cuban-Turkish athlete possesses the third best entry mark in the competition with 48.27s as his season time, only behind Frenchman Wilfried Happio with 47.41s and world record holder Karsten Warholm with 48.00s.

This season, Copello has obtained two silver medals. The first at the Mediterranean Games and the other at the Islamic Solidarity Games. Lastly, decathlete Abdel Kader Larrinaga will compete in the 110 meters hurdles, where he has a personal best of 13.59m achieved this year.

The native of Havana was a semifinalist in the 60 meters hurdles at the World Indoor Championship in Belgrade and, this year, was runner-up at the Portuguese Club Championship with Sporting Club in 100 meters hurdles, only surpassed by Cuban Roger Iribarne, of Benfica.

Cuban-origin athletes representing European nations have had very good results at the European Championships in recent times, with titles won by Yasmani Copello (Turkey – 400 meters hurdles) and Libania Grenot (Italy – 400 meters) in 2016; the silver medals of Luis Felipe Meliz (Spain – long jump) in 2012, Yasmani Copello and Alexis Copello in 2018, and the bronze of Orlando Ortega (Spain – 110 meters hurdles) in 2018, proving it.