Cuban long jumper Juan Miguel Echevarría will join Spanish club Playas de Castellón

January 12, 2022

Four of the main figures in athletics in Cuba, including Olympic silver medalist in long jump Juan Miguel Echevarría, will represent the Spanish club CA Playas de Castellón in the upcoming athletic season, according to the announcement by that institution.

Through its Twitter account, the club also welcomed Olympic finalists Roxana Gómez (400 meters) and Liadagmis Povea (triple jump), and middle-distance runner Rose Mary Almanza, who advanced to the semifinals of the 800 meters at the Tokyo 2020 summer games.

Juan Miguel, 23 years old and also indoor world champion in Birmingham 2018, would become the star of the Castellón entity, a two-time winner of the European Clubs Cup and considered the best athletics club in Spain since 2006.

Although athletics authorities on the Island have not made any official announcement on the matter, the national commissioner, Yipsi Moreno, acknowledged to the digital site Jit that "this is something we had planned as a strategy to facilitate their development, as they are some of our top figures at the moment."

However, the former Olympic champion in hammer throw at Beijing 2008 clarified that the negotiation with that club is still not totally finalized, according to the aforementioned source.

CA Playas de Castellón promotes athletics from an early age and has extensive experience and results in this discipline. It is not the first time it has hosted athletes born on the Caribbean Island, as previously the sprinter Yunier Pérez, the thrower Frank Casañas, and the hurdler Omar Cisneros, among others, passed through its ranks.

Currently on its roster are several local figures with international prestige such as race walker Diego García, European silver medalist in the 20 kilometers and sixth at the Tokyo Olympic games, and triple jump athlete Tessy Ebosele, recent junior world silver medalist in Nairobi.

During the past season, Cuban athletes settled in that Iberian region and used the club's facilities to complete their preparation prior to the Tokyo Olympic Games.

This is not the first experience in the insertion of Cuban athletics figures in Spanish clubs, as at the beginning of the 1990s the Larios club had the services of the current world record holder in high jump, Javier Sotomayor, Silvia Costa in the same specialty, and the stellar long jumper Iván Pedroso.

"It will benefit us in terms of the ease of movement for competitions, also because they will be concentrated there in terms of training and most importantly it will be with their own coaches," Moreno added on the subject, according to Jit.

For now, Juan Miguel Echevarría heads the group of four jumpers who this Tuesday departed for Europe to prepare their participation in the winter indoor track season, which will culminate with the universal event of this modality to be held between March 18-20 next, in the city of Belgrade.

The acclaimed jumper recently returned to training after recovering from an injury suffered in Tokyo, which required treatment at a specialized clinic in Germany.