Havana.- THE CUBAN GUY Juan José Santiesteban closed today in fourth place in the Maricá 2024 South American Archery Championship, an encouraging result in the face of upcoming commitments.
JJ – as his teammates call him – gave up 3-7 points in the duel for third place in the recurve bow against the Salvadoran Oscar Ticas, who had eliminated the local favorite Marcus D’Almeida, number one in the universal ranking, in the quarterfinals.
«We knew it would be a fairly even match. Ticas shot very well during the tournament and so did JJ, but he missed an arrow in the first series and fell in seven. That psychologically conditioned the rest of the competition,” he commented to JIT coach Reiter Téllez from the Brazilian city.
«It is always important to start at the front. These things happen in sport, which imposes pressure and makes mistakes, but in general we feel happy with what we have achieved,” said the coach of the trio made up of Hugo Franco and Javier Vega.
Both were far from the podium this time. Vega did not go beyond his first duel with the Chilean Ricardo Soto. Hugo lost in the run-up to the semifinals against Colombian Jorge Enríquez.
The title belonged to the coffee grower after defeating Argentine Mario Jajarabilla in the final with a score of 7-3.
“The most important thing was achieved here, adding competition time to practically apply all the work we have done in training over the last few months with the aim of qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” stressed the strategist.
The Cubans won the silver medal as a team, a performance that sustains optimism ahead of the Continental Archery Qualifying Tournament of the Americas in Medellín 2024.
In this event, scheduled from April 7 to 9, one place will be distributed for teams of each sex and two individuals, in this case without archers from the same country being able to enter.
So far, 38 men and 32 women have registered with aspirations of getting tickets for Paris 2024, including several of those who tested their aim in the recently concluded Brazilian competition.
In that case Ticas would be a member of the Salvadoran team, along with the Colombians Enríquez and Santiago Arcila, and the Argentine Jajarabilla, just to name some of the candidates.
2024-03-31 19:24:19
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