Science and innovation in support of future medals

In 2022, the Cuban sports movement faced a highly competitive calendar, even though it did not include the most traditional multisport events. However, it did prepare for what, in athletics, is the most important calendar.

Why is 2023 vital? It is a pre-Olympic year and, as such, it outlines the aspirations of each nation and each athlete to reach the highest stage: the Olympic Games. But this one has other peculiarities. Due to the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the previous event in Tokyo was held in 2021, shortening the period between one Games and another to three years; it also mean that other major events such as the Central American and Caribbean Games, in San Salvador, and the Pan American Games, in Santiago de Chile will take place in the same annual cycle,.

In addition to these two events, there are the demanding qualification systems for the five rings event, which will be hosted by Paris in 2024. These are events that will run through 2023 and that will cohabit with some that remain to reach the quotas for the events in El Salvador and Chile scheduled for June and November, respectively. In addition, world championships and other high-level events are also included.

Today, unlike in the past, the process of getting into optimal shape is not so long, precisely because of the proliferation of different tournaments. For example, in a sport as widely followed as soccer, its long seasons coincide with Champions Cups, World Cup qualifiers, national super cups or regional competitions in the same period of time. It also happens to extensive campaigns, such as that of our baseball, which require adjustments to that state of excellence.

In order to respond to these challenges, the methods of achieving or maintaining sports form have changed, which include a high component of scientific advances in the preparation of the athlete, demanding from coaches a much greater rigor in their updating and creativity. They must be able to ensure that their pupils, in addition to jumping higher, running faster or being stronger, fully interpret the competitive and sporting form variables. That is to say, when a resource is tactically better, which technical elements to consider at a given moment and which are its psychological advantages; due to the changes in the rules, which are very frequent, to dominate theoretically their sport and, together with all this, to sustain physically the rigors demanded by the opponent and the wide calendar.

Now they work with greater intensity and less volume of load. Some call this model preparing or training at the same time as competing. But if the athlete-trainer binomial does not meet these requirements, success will not knock on their doors, and what could enter through them would be the many injuries that we have today in top-level competitive sport worldwide, due to the great demands. In other words, science and innovation become essential supports for future medals.

The year 2022 illustrates how much competitive commitment is required. And if we look ahead to 2023, the attendance at five multisport events gives the measure that the numbers, when we make a similar balance, will be doubled. The challenge is gigantic, but the motivation is even greater. That is to say, since we closed Tokyo-2020 (in 2021), sport began one of its most intense races, with a single goal: for Cuba to reach the finish line upright and triumphant.

         Translated by ESTI