Osleidys Menéndez Sáez

Cuban athlete, specialist in javelin throwing. Olympic champion (Athens 2004), double world champion (Edmonton 2001, Helsinki 2005) and world record holder (71.70).

She was born in Martí Municipality, in the western province of Matanzas, on November 14, 1979. From her primary studies, she showed great abilities in physical education exercises at her school. For this reason, at age 12 she began practicing javelin throwing, as the young girl threw a baseball with more force than the boys in her school. Her first medals soon came in the National School Games, the Olympics of Cuban school athletes.

Her progress became evident very quickly and she entered the national youth team. In 1996, before turning 17, she participated in the World Championship of her category held in the Australian city of Sydney. There she demonstrated her worth and won the gold medal with a throw of 60.96 meters.

Beginnings

In 1994 she participates in the National School Games, held in Las Tunas, achieving victory with a record for the event, with 47.78 meters. That same year, in Santiago de Cuba, during the Aurelio Janet Memorial, she threw 53.98 meters.

In early 1997, Osleidys achieved a mark of 66.92 meters in a competition in her country; such performance included her in the Cuban delegation to the World Championship in Athens, where she finished in a respectable seventh place (63.76), as she entered the finals at only 17 years old and competed with renowned specialists in the discipline worldwide.

In 1998, the Matanzas native became world youth champion again at the event organized by the French city of Annecy. There she obtained her best mark and competition record (68.17), the fourth of that year on the planet. The International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) proclaimed her the best athlete in the world in her category that year. However, in her first Central American and Caribbean Games in Maracaibo, Venezuela, she had to settle for second place, surprisingly surpassed by her compatriot Sonia Bicet, who set a Games record (63.30).

In 1999 she excelled with a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, where she threw the javelin to 65.85 meters, but at the World Championship in Seville, Spain, she finished in fourth position.

In the following season she had the opportunity to participate in an Olympic Games, the great dream of every athlete. Sydney, Australia, organized the summer event at the end of 2000. There, Osleidys gave notice by leading the qualifiers (67.34). Months before, in a competition in Berlin, she had achieved the second-best mark of the year (67.83). In the concluding stage of the event under the five rings, she finished with a respectable bronze medal (66.18), behind experienced Norwegian Trine Hattestad (68.91) and Greek Mirilla Manjani-Tzelili (67.51).

The best of Osleidys Menéndez was yet to come. In 2001, before participating in the World Championship in Edmonton, she competed in the Rethymno tournament in Greece, where she set a world record in javelin throwing with a throw of 71.54, becoming the first woman to exceed 70 meters since the rule change in 1999. At the Track and Field World Championship she was impeccable and in tremendous athletic form.

She took home the coveted gold medal (69.53), almost four meters more than the second-place finisher, Greek Mireja Manjani. She already had the world title and also the world record. She only lacked the highest Olympic honor and that would come three years later in Athens, Greece.

During the rest of the Olympic cycle, Osleidys had her ups and downs in performance, fundamentally associated with some injuries—especially in the shins—as most of her training was done on hard surfaces. She won the World Cup in Madrid 2002 and ended the year in second place in the world rankings (67.40), only surpassed by Greek Manjani (67.47). At the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 2003, she could not retain the crown and finished in third place, behind American Kim Kreiner and Bahamian Laverne Eve.

That same year, at the World Championship in Paris, France, she finished in fifth place with a modest 62.19 and with her best mark of only 63.96, she finished sixth in the world rankings. These results affected her psychologically, but with the guidance and wise advice of her coach Dionisio Quintana, "The Antillean Dart," she became the best on the planet again.

At the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, Osleidys Menéndez achieved her great dream and aspirations. Together with her coach, they set the goal of not exhausting themselves much in the qualifying round, and once in the final, putting all their effort into the first throw. And so it was. As expected, she entered the final of 12 competitors and with her first throw, the javelin took an incredible flight and stuck in the grass with a mark of 71.53 meters. It was an Olympic record and was only one centimeter shy of her own world record, and also constituted the best mark of the season. None of her rivals could even get close to 70 meters.

The silver medalist, the stellar German Steffi Nerius, could only exceed 65 meters (65.82). Third place went to the well-known Greek Mirella Manjani-Tzelili (64.29). In the end, Osleidys enjoyed the notes of her national anthem from the top of the podium, while almost 70,000 people gathered in the Athens Olympic stadium did not stop cheering for her.

There were still other significant results in her career. She attended as the main figure of the Cuban delegation at the Track and Field World Championship in Helsinki the following year. The stellar javelin thrower did not disappoint fans and experts, and hung the second gold medal at world events on her chest. But not only was that the most outstanding, but she completed the great feat with another world record (71.70), destroying her own universal reign by 16 centimeters. She became the great star of the Cuban delegation, which achieved a total of six medals of different colors. There was no room for doubt. She was the best of all time in Cuba and one of the most relevant in the world.

In 2006, the injuries to her legs increased. She competed in the Central American and Caribbean Games in Cartagena de Indias, where she had to settle for the silver medal, which is why she decided to take a break and dedicate herself to necessary medical treatment.

In August 2007, somewhat recovered but with a deficit in preparation, she attended the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the beach city, Osleidys threw the javelin to 62.34 meters for the gold medal and was accompanied by another Cuban, Sonia Bicet (60.68). The bronze medal went to the Bahamian Laverne Eve (58.10). In this way, she recovered the continental title lost in Santo Domingo four years earlier.

Injuries interfered with Osleidys's athletic career again. She could not attend the World Championship in Osaka, Japan, in 2007. She reappeared in 2008, but with marks well below what she was accustomed to. At that time, young Czech Bárbara Spotáková shattered her world record with 72.28 meters.

As a high-level athlete, Osleidys did not give up and continued her preparation, thinking only of the World Championship the following year in Berlin. She is one of those athletes you always have to count on in major events.

Her possible last competition was precisely at the World Championship in the German capital in 2009. At age 30 and with a modest mark of 58.09, achieved in her country at the Games of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, Osleidys managed to qualify for the final of 12 and in the concluding round finished in a respectable seventh place with a throw of 63.11.