Leydis Oquendo Valdés

Leidys is a basketball athlete. One of the leaders in the 2011-2012 season with the Camagüey team, in the Women's League of this sport, averaging 21.32 baskets per game. She was selected as the Most Valuable Player of the centrobasket 2012 held in June in Puerto Rico.

Native of Florida, Camagüey. She practiced basketball since she was twelve years old, when she studied at the Leonor Pérez school, in Florida. From then on she tried to devote all her attention to the sport.

She began playing as a reinforcement for Sancti Spíritus, then moved to the Santiago de Cuba team. However, she always longed for Camagüey to participate in national events, until she managed to join to play in her province.

She participated in 10 national sub-series, effectively developing her offensive and defensive tools, just as she did in the first two leagues, where she led the top scorers.

At the national level, Oquendo also finished among the leaders in the 2011-2012 season with the Camagüey team, in the Women's League, averaging 21.32 baskets per game. She is second in rebounds (145, 8.06).

She had a good physique for basketball, which made her the athlete who spent the most time on the court (677.28 minutes), among all participants in the tournament.

She received the merit of most valuable player during the IX Central American and Caribbean University Games in Venezuela and stood out in the Electrobras Cup in Brazil. At the centrobasket 2012, held in June in Puerto Rico, in addition to her natural ability to make difficult plays and her excellent left-handed touch, she demonstrated her ability to generate shots both for herself and for her teammates, by creating lines of attacks and discouraging the double marks applied to her.

Results
Leaders in the 2011-2012 season with the Camagüey team.
Most Valuable Player of the centrobasket 2012 held in June in Puerto Rico.
Gold medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games, Veracruz, Mexico.

Recognition
Chosen together with baseball player Alexander Ayala as the best athletes in team sports in 2016 in Camagüey.

Selected together with Alexander Ayala as the best athletes in team sports in the province of Camagüey in 2017.

Selected among the ten most outstanding athletes of 2018 in Camagüey.

In 2022 shortly before her death, Oquendo had finished as the leading scorer in the professional league of El Salvador, where she had been contracted since 2017. She was a multi-champion with Santa Tecla BKB and FAS Fever, with whom she was crowned this year as national champion and leading scorer of the 2022 season.

Oquendo Valdés was a member for more than 16 years of the national pre-selections and participated in the world championships in Brazil 2006 and Turkey 2014. Among her most outstanding results with the Cuban squad stands out the sixth place obtained in the 2001 youth world championship.

She also won the Central American and Caribbean Games twice and the Centrobasket tournament five times (2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012).

Leydis had also achieved excellent results in the professional leagues of Argentina and the Dominican Republic, in which she was contracted.

In 2016 she played in the Super League of Argentina, where she was chosen as Best Foreign Player.

She also played with the Águilas de Guachupita, in the National Women's Basketball League of the Dominican Republic. In the Dominican country, playing for Águilas de Guachupita in 2017, she achieved the record for most points in a game (51), tied in 2021 by Hanna Collet. Meanwhile, in the South American nation, a year earlier, she had accomplished the same feat when she played for Talleres de Paraná, but on that occasion she finished the match with 38 points.