Leonor Borrel Will Have a Place in the Basketball Hall of Fame

January 19, 2025

The International Basketball Federation (Fiba) announced that Leonor Andrea Borrell Hernández, from Villa Clara, will be inducted into the hall of fame of this sport on May 17th,

Leonor, who has resided in the United States since 2016, will become the first female basketball player from the largest island in the Caribbean to achieve this recognition, something that among men had already been obtained in 2015 by Ruperto Herrera Tabío, a native of the capital, a bronze medalist at the Munich Olympic Games, 1972.

Born in Santa Clara on November 10, 1963, Leonor Borrell was part of the Cuban team that won the bronze medal at the world championship held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1990 and at the world event held in the former Soviet Union in 1986, she was the leading scorer with 187 points, a performance that earned her a place among the ten best athletes in the country that year.

The sister of Lázaro Borrell – another great figure of Cuban basketball – was part of the squad that won the Pan American Games in San Juan, 1979 and finished as runner-up in the continental competitions in Caracas (1983) and Havana (1991), successes to which are added the gold medals achieved at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Santiago de los Caballeros, 1986; Mexico City, 1990 and Ponce, 1993.

At the ceremony that will take place in Bahrain next May, Pau Gasol (Spain), Dawn Staley (United States), Alphonse Bilé (Ivory Coast), Andrew Bogut (Australia), Fadi El Khatib (Lebanon), Ticha Penicheiro (Portugal), Ratko Radovanovic (Serbia), and coach Mike Krzyzewski (United States) will also be inducted.

Borrell is the second figure from Villa Clara sports that in 2025 is announced to be inducted into a hall of fame, as on January 3rd it was revealed that Nélido Manso López, a sailor from Caibarién, was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the International Snipe Class Association.