The island’s five players completed an excellent preparation on European soil, according to the national team’s chief strategist.
Raúl Trujillo does not want to be overly optimistic, but he knows that he has arrived in Paris at the head of a squad that is very well prepared to take on the enormous challenge of shining at the Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling competition.
The fact that he has two reigning Olympic champions under his command gives him confidence that the squad will perform well here, but that confidence is also underpinned by the good work they have put in over the past few months in Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria.
The already legendary Mijaín López (130 kg) heads the list and is attracting a lot of media attention. His carefully designed training programme is aimed at winning a fifth consecutive title, something never seen before in this sport.
Only the presence of the Giant of Herradura in the squad prevents Luis Alberto Orta (67 kg) from being the big name. In his mind there is no other thought than to reedit the reign established in Tokyo 2020, although now in a higher division.
«Looking back on the preparation, I can say that it was very good. In the first stage, when we were in Porec, we trained together with about 250 wrestlers. Of those, almost 90 per cent are the ones who will be fighting in Paris,» the strategist explained to JIT, shortly after settling into the village on the banks of the River Seine, which has been the home of world sport for more than a week.
«In Hungary we had very good training sessions and from there we went to Bulgaria. We felt at home there, we received a different kind of treatment, with everything we needed to complete an excellent preparation. We were accompanied by wrestlers from some important teams such as Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Romania and several countries in America», explained the man who has taken over the reins of the team to continue the work carried out for decades with notable success by the late coach Pedro Val.
Trujillo was also satisfied with the values of the parameters measured in each stage, especially the closing stage, in which some details, such as maintaining body weight before and during the competition, are extremely important.
«The medical triad has been very important for them to arrive here healthy. All the controls have gone very well, and the results that have been obtained allow us to ensure that our representatives show perfect parameters, with a very good orientation towards the objectives that have been set,» he said without reservation regarding the good atmosphere that reigns among those who have been called up.
The Cuban classical style team is completed by Kevin de Armas (60 kg), Yosvany Peña (77 kg) and Gabriel Rosillo (97 kg), all motivated to show their best performance in the Arena del Campo de Marte.
For the coach, the basics have already been done, and he ratified that the objective remains intact: «We only need the competition. That’s when we’ll be able to see the results, which will then be reflected in the medal tally,» he said.
So far, the Greco-Roman wrestlers have contributed nine gold, five silver and two bronze medals to Cuba’s historical harvest in summer events.
