Cuba dominant at NORCECA Santo Domingo

The Cubans were in indomitable form in the scenic Dominican city of Santo Domigo as their athletes put in a string of fantastic performances to win all three categories in this level 2 competition, with gold medals in both the individual men and women competitions as well as in the mixed relay.

Their promise and expert coaching set-up was in evidence right from the start of the event, showing an intelligence in their play and a quality work ethic in each discipline to shine throughout the competition.

The most pleasing aspect though of this competition was to see the improvement being made by competitors from all countries involved. A total of 78 athletes from 13 nations participated.

The swimming in particular was very strong with many recording times close to 2 minutes with Storie from the USA topping the charts with 1:55.8 in the pool.

Cuban were very strong in the combined. Moya from Cuba beat Oliviera from Brazil after some hard running and composed shooting gave her the edge in the women’s event whilst in the men’s competition, it was Figeroa whose precision made the difference as he claimed another gold for Cuba.

In the mixed relay, it was pretty much the same story as the Cuban team won after a strong combined event. On these performances, they can surely challenge any athletes around the world in this exciting run/shoot event. The USA set a new record in the 50m pool in the mixed relay with their team clocking up a time of 1:51:90.

The riding was challenging and really tested the athletes’ know-how around the course. The horses were well prepared and gave the event that extra edge. The women’s competition was organised with ladder fencing which was very successful and really captured the imagination of the viewing public.