Cuba sends best five to taekwondo world championship

The world champion in Puebla 2013, Rafael Alba led the team of five Cuban athletes to compete at the Taekwondo World Championship in Chelyabinsk, Russia, on May 12-18, the official daily Juventud Rebelde (JR) said in Sunday.

Besides of Alba (87 kilograms), considered the best card of the island for the games, the squad is comprised by the Olympic bronze medalist in London 2012 and also world record holder Robelis Despaigne (+87), followed by the Centro-American monarch Jose Angel Cobas (74). The group is completed with the ladies Yania Aguirre (49) and Yamisel Nunez (53), both of them are world bronze medalists.

Only a few but lethal, said JR considering that despite the short number of members, the Cuban team could be more dangerous than many countries with full squad.

In the previous edition in Puebla, Mexico, 2013 Cuba took the second position after South Korea.

The Caribbean island and Mexico are considered the main taekwondo powers in the American continent. However Ramon Arias, head coach of the women's team warned on the heavy presence of good fighters from Europe, Asia and America in Chelyabinsk, looking for winning the points that the championship provides for the ranking WTF.

According to the specialized site www.mastaekwondo.com, an athlete conquering the gold medal in Russia would win 120 points for the ranking, an excellent amount for aspiring to a ticket for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro 2016. Meanwhile the silver medallist would win 72 points and the bronze 43.20.

Players from the fifth position till the eighth receive 25.92 units, and participants concluding between the ninth and 16th place would add 18.14 points to their ranking, and so on, until the player located in the 65th position, who earns 6.22 points for the WTF ranking.

Even by losing you win points at this competition, said Roberto Cardenas, head coach of the Cuban men's team. He stressed that the person reaching the 65th position in Chelyabinsk earns more points than a silver medallist in a G-1 competition.

Cardenas stressed that Alba and Despaigne have no rivals in the Latin American area, but warned they have not had international experience since the last world championship in Mexico 2013.

He recalled that in Puebla the situation was favourable for the Cubans, because that was their main competition of the year, and they had a previous training base in the same city. Now they arrive to Chelyabinks at about 80 percent of their operational capability and with the pressure of the Pan American Games of Toronto in two months, where they should arrive in full capability, commented the two experienced trainers.

Cuba also suffers this time the loss of its best woman athlete, the world champion in Puebla, Glehnis Hernandez (75), sanctioned to one year out of international competitions because of disrespectful behaviour after losing to the Mexican Maria Rosario Espinoza in the final combat of the Centro-American Games, Veracruz 2014.

Alba and Hernandez are seen as the main hopes of Cuban national teams.

WTF taekwondo was introduced in Cuba on January 10, 1987, while the traditional style ITF entered the year before. Both modalities are very popular in the country and their practitioners fight frequently in mixed local events of the two lines, under the WTF rules. Endi