Cuban Faces 2017: Osleni Guerrero, Badminton Player

Osleni Guerrero started practicing badminton at the age of eight, when he was in the third grade in elementary school. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 29 December 2017 — The star of world badminton (b. 1989, Havana) has lived a year of vertigo in which he reached the highest echelons of the awards ceremonies, although he also missed out on some trophies.

At the VIII Badminton Open in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, Guerrero won the gold medal in the individual event and the men’s doubles, where he teamed up with Leodannis Martinez. He was also crowned five-time champion of the Giraldilla Badminton International Tournament in Havana, which celebrated its eighteenth season last March. However, he lost out on the highest medal at the VIII International Tournament of Aguas Calientes, Mexico, and also in the Suriname International Tournament.

At the age of five, Guerrero began practicing several sports, including wrestling, judo and karate, at the Vicente Ponce Carrasco Sports Center in Centro Habana. When he was in third grade, he signed up for badminton and that’s how he took his first steps in this specialty.

He is number one in Cuba and alternately fills one of the first three places in the Americas. In the world ranking he is number 50. When he plays the sport he likes to defend, but more commonly he is on the offensive and is defined as “an attacker.” He believes that in his specialty the serve “is noble” and with “the shuttlecock you have to be careful not to lose velocity because then you give it to your opponent.”

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