14ymedio, Havana, 3 April 2022 — The silver medalist in the London 2012 Olympic Games and world champion in Beijing 2015, Yarisley Silva, requested her withdrawal from the Cuban National Athletics Team, according to Play-Off Magazine. “A source close to the athlete confirmed the decision of the award-winning pole vaulter” and leaving along with her, her coach Alexander Navas.
The decision was seen by specialists as a significant loss for athletics on the Island. “The request for withdrawal of the world and Olympic multi-medallist Yarisley Silva, along with her coach Alexander Navas, is one more drop in a glass that is already full,” postedSwingCompleto journalist Yasel Porto.
“The issue is not what could happen in sports with Yarita in the future, but that her reasons for her departure include her dissatisfaction with the way in which the Federation has carried out many logistical movements and other things related to her and Navas,” added the communicator. “The landscape of the Island as the so-called king of sports is increasingly gray.”
Porto regretted the decision, as does the Cuban sports environment, hard hit by leaks and bad sports decisions. “We are nowhere near having to say RIP to Cuban Athletics, nothing less than the most important sport for us, along with baseball and boxing.”
The decision comes after Silva was left out of the 18th edition of the World Indoor Athletics Championships, which took place in Belgrade (Serbia), due to problems bringing her own poles.
At that time, it was indicated that the Cuban Athletics Commissioner, Yipsy Moreno, explained to the sports site Jit that Silva could not travel directly from Spain — where she was — to Belgrade because the European Union (EU) establishes that with her visa she could not stay longer than three months.
The Cuban athlete had to return to Cuba to go to the capital of Serbia, but then she faced a new setback: her personal pole vaults had remained in Spain.
This Sunday, upon learning of Yarisley Silva’s determination, the sports editor at Radio Habana Cuba, Raúl Rodríguez, shared on Facebook that “they should never have said goodbye in that way to the sport that they contributed so much to for years… they have the eternal applause and recognition of Cubans and lovers of athletics.”
This Pinar del Río native, born in 1987, broke into the headlines of the sports pages in 2011. During 2015 she was proclaimed world champion in her discipline in the spectacular Bird’s Nest in Beijing with a jump in which she flew up to 4.90 meters.
On August 3, 2015, she surpassed herself in Beckum, Germany, when she reached an impressive 4.91 meters, her best of the year and a national record.
She stood on the podium as the best in: the Diamond League in Oslo 2017 (Norway), 5th International Urban Pole Vaulting Meeting in Mexico 2018, XXIII Central American and Caribbean Games Barranquilla 2018 (Colombia), Sotteville Athletic Meeting 2019 (France), Lima 2019 Pan American Games (Peru).
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