The Cuban-Portuguese Pichardo gives Portugal a gold with Cuban flavor in triple jump

August 5, 2021

Pedro Pablo Pichardo, born in Cuba but representing Portugal since 2019, achieved the greatest success of his sports career by becoming Olympic champion in the triple jump, this Thursday in Tokyo.

Pichardo, 28 years old, reached 17.98 meters and set a new Portuguese record, surpassing on the podium the Chinese Zhu Yaming (17.57 meters) and the Burkinese Hugues-Fabrice Zango (17.47 meters).

In the absence due to injury of the discipline's dominator, American Christian Taylor, two-time Olympic champion and four-time world champion, Pichardo took the opportunity to finally reach the highest step of the podium.

"It has always been one of my dreams to be able to achieve Olympic gold. I have been doing this (triple jump) since I was six years old. I feel great happiness and I still have many dreams to fulfill," Pichardo said after his great performance at Tokyo's Olympic Stadium.

"It has been a very good competition, very tough. Everyone was very strong, so that makes winning this gold medal feel even better," he affirmed.

The triple jumper, naturalized Portuguese in 2017 and authorized to compete in major events for the European country since two years later, achieved two world silver medals when competing with Cuba, in Moscow-2013 and Beijing-2015.

Already representing Portugal, Pichardo finished fourth two years ago at the Doha World Championships.

Pichardo's best mark remains the one achieved in 2015 in Havana with 18.08 meters, which makes him the fourth man to have gone the farthest in the triple jump.

At the Olympic Games, Pichardo was participating for the first time after missing the Rio-2016 edition at the last moment due to an injury that Cuban doctors believed was not properly healed, something that ultimately convinced him to leave the island and seek a new future in Europe.

In the Tokyo-2020 Olympic final, Cuban Cristian Nápoles also participated, who with 16.63 meters finished in tenth position among the twelve participants.

For his part, Zango, protégé of former French world champion in triple jump Teddy Tamgho, achieved at his 28 years the first Olympic medal in the history of Burkina Faso.

"It's perfect for Burkina Faso because it's my country's independence day and I have achieved the first medal for my country. It's something very good and historic for my country," he explained.

"It's not the medal I wanted, but it's something good for Burkina Faso because it's historic. In Burkina Faso they are very happy, everyone is happy. I think they will prepare a big party for me when I return," he assured.

The triple jump at Tokyo-2020 has spoken Spanish. If Pichardo has been crowned in the men's event, in the women's event the champion was the Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas, the great favorite, who also managed to break a world record by reaching 15.67 meters, surpassing by 17 centimeters the old record of Ukrainian Inessa Kravets, which had stood since 1995.