Denia Caballero Ponce

Denia is a Cuban discus thrower. Central American champion, Pan American champion, world champion and Olympic medalist.

She began practicing the sport in her adolescence. At 18 years old she exceeded 50 meters in javelin and later achieved a personal mark of 52.10. She finally abandoned javelin and dedicated herself to discus, the specialty in which she has achieved her best competitive results.

Sports Career
2009 - 2012
In 2009 she participated in the ALBA Games, in which she finished in fourth position. Two years later she won the title at the Central American and Caribbean Championship and finished third at the Pan American Games held in Guadalajara, Mexico. She qualified for the London Olympic Games, but finished far behind in her qualifying group and was unable to access the final.

2013 - 2016
During the 2013 season she finished eighth at the World Athletics Championship in Moscow, Russia. The following year she won at the Nancy Athletic Meet in Nancy, France, on [June 27], with a throw of 64.35 meters and at the Diamond League stop held in Paris, a month later she finished fifth with a mark of 63.29 meters.

As part of the Cuban athletics delegation she participated in the XXII Central American and Caribbean Games Veracruz 2014 and won the gold medal with a throw of 64.47, which represented a record for the competition, surpassing on the podium her teammate Yaimé Pérez (62.42) and Colombian Jhoana Marcela Martínez (56.27).

At the Paavo Nurmi Meet in Turku, Finland on June 26, 2015 she obtained the gold medal with a throw of 65.17. That same year, during the XVII Pan American Games held in Toronto, Canada she won the gold medal by surpassing fellow Cuban Yaimé Pérez and American Gia Lewis Smallwood.

She confirmed her stellar form by reaching the top of the medal podium at the World Championship with an initial throw of 69.28 meters that was enough to silence the Bird's Nest in Beijing.

During the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games she managed to rank among the medalists by finishing in third position of the final with a throw of 65.34 meters in a very tight competition that was won by her great rival, Croatian Sandra Pérkovic.

2017 - 2020
She obtained the silver medal at the Cuba Cup of Athletics held at the Pan American Stadium in March 2017 with a throw of 64.08 meters.

At the World Athletics Championship held in London in August 2017 she did not win a medal, finishing in fifth place with a mark of 64.37.

On August 20 at the Diamond League in Birmingham, held this day as a preliminary stop to the finals intended for Zurich and Brussels`, she won the silver medal with a mark of 65.24 meters achieved on a second attempt that left behind the 62.78 marked in the initial.

On September 1, 2017, Denia won the bronze medal in the discus throw at the Van Damme Memorial, in the final phase of the 2017 Diamond League final, held in Brussels, Belgium, with a mark of 64.61 meters, surpassed by Croatian Sandra Perkovic (68.82 m) and Australian Dani Stevens (65.85), in that order.

In May 2018, at the opening of the Diamond League in Doha, Qatar, she obtained the bronze medal with a mark of 63.80.

On May 30, 2019 she won the gold medal during the Diamond League stop in Stockholm, Sweden, with a throw of 65.10 meters.

On June 16, 2019 at the sixth stop of the Diamond League in Rabat, Morocco, she won the silver medal with a throw of 65.95 surpassed by her teammate Yaimé Pérez. A few days later, on June 20, she made her presence felt in Huelva, Spain, with a mark of 69.20 meters, the best of the year. There she was accompanied on the podium by her teammate Yaimé Pérez with 67.27[15].