Cuban Iván Pedroso, is the legend behind the medals of Ana Peleteiro and Yulimar Rojas in Tokyo 2020

August 3, 2021

A Cuban, a Venezuelan, and a Galician walk into a bar in Guadalajara. It could be the beginning of a joke or a real situation after a training day for two of the Olympic medalists in triple jump from Tokyo 2020.

Yulimar Rojas, champion and new holder of the world record (she broke the legendary 15.50 by Inessa Kravets achieved in Gothenburg 1995), and Ana Peleteiro, bronze medalist and Spanish record holder, celebrated on the track of the Olympic Stadium their respective successes as if one were family to the other. And they almost are. They treat each other like sisters since they came under the guidance of a true institution of long jump, the legendary Iván Pedroso.

It is no coincidence that when Rojas made her last jump (she was already champion), the 15.67, the first to hug her was the Spanish athlete.

The connection between Iván Pedroso (Olympic gold in long jump at Sydney 2000 and four-time world champion) and Yulimar Rojas came about in the most common way these days: through a Facebook message. The Venezuelan sent him a private message in 2015 asking if he saw potential in her, and at that time she was already beginning to stand out in competitions in her country and the Pan-American Games. The following year she was already silver at Rio 2016, surpassed only by Catherine Ibargüen.

From there on up. Under Pedroso's guidance, and affiliated with FC Barcelona's athletics club, Yulimar Rojas has continued to grow in this Olympic cycle to the point that she was not only the favorite, but it was taken for granted that she would break the historic world record, in effect since Gothenburg 2015. Precisely the World Championship in which her coach became champion for the first time.