Thus far Maykel Demetrio Massó has won two consecutive World titles for Cuba, with one to go. On July 20, the athlete from Santiago de Cuba triumphed in the long-jump event of the 16th IAAF World U20 Championships Bydgoszcz 2016, Poland, with a leap of eight meters.
Although he would have preferred to land his best jump on his first attempt in the competition held at the Zawisza stadium, he only managed a leap of 7.50 meters with a 1.5 m/s headwind. However, he hit the eight meter mark on his second of four attempts, despite facing a 1.8 m/s headwind, to win the event.
The 17 year old athlete was crowned World Youth Champion (under 18) in Cali, Colombia, 2015, where he made a leap of 8.05 meters, aided by lower wind resistance and the high altitude of the stadium.
He has surpassed the eight meter mark on several occasions, with his best performance at the end of last May during the Barrientos Memorial International Athletics Meet in Havana, where he jumped for 8.28 meters, setting a new Under-18 and national youth record, and placing him among the top five under-20 long jumpers on the planet.
Massó’s talent and skills saw him triumph in difficult conditions. Meanwhile Ja’Mari Ward from the United States, failed to make it over 7.68 meters, ending in seventh place.
Juan Miguel Echevarría also from Cuba reached 7.78m, finishing in fifth place, while Massó was accompanied on the podium by Greece’s Miltiadis Tentoglou, who took the silver with a leap of 7.91 meters, and Darcy Roper of Australia, bronze medal winner with 7.88 meters – an exact repeat of the medal results in Cali, 2015.
It is important to point out that Massó’s historic performance at the Barrientos Athletics Meet once again put Cuba on the world long jump map, and saw him selected to compete as part of the island’s 39-member track and field squad at the Río 2016 Olympic Games, an indisputable achievement for the young athlete and his coach Juan Gualberto Nápoles.
