• Submitted by: Luis Manuel Mazorra
• Sports
• 10 / 03 / 2014

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The Central American and Caribbean Games Veracruz 2014will be the next international sporting contest that Cuba aspires to play a leading role. The modern pentathlon is one of the sports that take the challenge of taking medals in all five forms of competition that this includes.

The pentathlon includes swimming, fencing, athletics, riding and shooting. Three men and three women make up the Cuban team and aim to achieve medals in individual and relay modes, both sex and mixed. The individual fair will feature 18 competitors each sex, but many of them repeated in the collective modes.

Alejandro Guarch, head coach of the discipline, said the main goal will be to overcome the result reached in Cartagena de Indias, 2006: four silver medals. He reported that athletes are expected to improve their personal bests too.

The main figures are José Ricardo Figueroa, second in the Champions Cup that brought together the world's best last year, and Leidy Laura Moya, started the Youth Olympic Games Singapore 2010.

Speaking of opponents Guarch said Mexico and Guatemala are the ones most likely to dethrone the Cubans. He also said that now becomes more important the combined test (four consecutive laps of 800-meter race combined with a shot each), because it gives 500 points.

Behind goes riding (300), the main concern of the Cuban group, while swimming (200m freestyle) and fencing (all against all) spread over 250 units each.

In this regard, he explained that it will be very important the physical training, because they will compete in successive days from November 17 to 20, and some will have little recovery time between event and event.

Source: Prensa Latina