Hermenegildo García Maturell

Glory of Cuban sports, retired fencer and current coach of the new generations of fencers.

In 1974 he began his primary studies at school #47 Manuel Ascunce Domenech in his native Santiago de Cuba.

A fervent lover of this sport since he witnessed the first matches, and determined to embrace it when at the end of the 1970s he was declared among the athletes of immediate prospect at the EIDE "Capitán Orestes Acosta" in the Hero City.

He was twice a university world champion, a Central American title holder, a graduate in Physical Culture, and decorated in 1988 with the Medal of Sports Honor.

He took up fencing at age 11, through a friend who practiced it. A recruitment was held at the CVD "Antonio Maceo" and several children attended, but they were only going to select 11, and he finished in fourth place after some technical tests. This opened the doors to the School of Sports Initiation EIDE, where he finally decided on foil, which is the basic weapon of fencing, as well as the most difficult and most technical.

He was very small, in age and stature, many did not trust him, but two years later he was already champion in the National School Games. Time went on, and in the 1980s he became national youth champion on two occasions, and as a member of that category's national team he won bronze at the Pan American Championship held in Mexico in 1987, now as a member of the national team.

That year he went to a tournament with 110 participants, at the end of 1987, where the main powers of this sport were present: Russia, East Germany, West Germany, Romania, Poland, and he won in the city of Potsdam, where he went undefeated in all matches. In '88 he made the team for the Seoul Olympics, although they did not attend, and also around that time he was at the World Championship in Lyon, where they obtained fifth place by teams. At the Central American Games in Mexico 1990 he was crowned champion, and in 1991 he won the World Championship in Budapest.

He decided to retire from active sports in 2002 at age 36 because he no longer had the same reflexes and the best thing for an athlete is to retire with glory held high.

From 2005 to 2007, he worked as a coach in Venezuela and had relevant results at the country level, even the men's team obtained bronze and the women's team fourth place, all of this in the state of Yaracuy.

Upon returning to the country he moved to the Alejandro Urgellés multipurpose hall in Santiago de Cuba, and has worked at the EIDE. In 2010 he was a coach at the World Championship in Azerbaijan, where he managed to qualify Redis Prades Rosabal, the only athlete who took Cuba to the Youth Olympic Games held in Singapore, and obtained 11th place. In fact, that year for his results in other international competitions he was selected as the best foil coach in the country.

He currently has a project with children in Santiago de Cuba to detect talent in fencing, a discipline that has always had good results in the province.