• Submitted by: manso
• Sports
• 10 / 31 / 2010

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By Elsa Ramos. Sancti Spiritus’s young baseball star Yordan Lizano Rivero holds on tight his golden medal. He knows for sure this is his most precious treasure. Category 11-12 years old Cuban baseball team won the 5th World Championship recently September in Venezuela, and he was definitely part of it.

More than two months he fought among other 44 baseball players in order to gain position in the national squad. Sacrifice meant to forget vacations time and getting involved in competitions. Finally, his hands helped him be elected regular in the team.

“The second game I played defense in the final innings. The third one I was the regular short stop and in my first appearance I hit a homerun. I don’t even know how I did it because I’m more of a hit man. Then I played the rest of the games. I just waited for an opportunity because I couldn’t make things go wrong for me, my province and my country”.

“This is the first time ever I get to the Cuban team and I earned it bat in hands. We lost the first game to Venezuela because we were under a lot of pressure, but we got over and only two games didn’t end by a knockout score”.

Yordan averaged 20-8, with 8 runs batted in and 7 scored. The most outstanding thing was that he made no defense errors, which proves that he had perfectly portrayed his favorite player Eduardo Paret, one of the greatest Cuban shortstops of all times.

During the National Championship this year he was a star at defense and so he did in the previous category (9-10 years). His hands have been important for Sancti Spiritus getting a golden medal and two bronzes.

David Perez, Yordan’s coach since he was five, describes this young boy with just a few words: discipline, perseverance and devotion to the sport he loves.

Source: www.escambray.cu/Eng/Sport/yordan101030113