Cuba in preparatory seminar for Deaflympics 2025

Havana, Nov 18.- Details of the facilities, as well as the sports program and modalities called for the Tokyo 2025 Deaflympics, appear among the topics that the organizers will address with the heads of missions in a seminar that began in the Japanese capital.

The multi-sports event scheduled for November 16 to 25 next year will have the presence of a delegation from Cuba, which should be led by the multi-time athletics champion Suslaydi Girat.

Jorge Reinaldo Palma, head of the sports department for people with disabilities at Inder and Cuban representative at the meeting, provided JIT with some details related to the important event.

This is one of the sporting events that Cuba will take on next year. Except for the Junior Pan American Games in Asunción and the Youth Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile, there will not be another multi-sport event on the calendar and that is what we are going to prepare for, the manager assured.

It is going to be a great challenge and we intend to improve what was achieved in the previous edition held in the Brazilian city of Caxias do Sul, in 2022, Palma recognized, taking as a reference the performance of the Cubans in that event, when they competed in athletics, table tennis , swimming, cycling and judo.

The main results in the Brazilian event emerged from the field and track, especially thanks to the performance of Suslaydi, winner of two gold medals and one silver. The sprinter and jumper has been champion in every edition since the 2009 Taipei version.

Now we are going to receive several important information about the schedule of dates to be met for the delivery of data and other aspects that will allow us to outline a better preparation strategy according to the demands, he acknowledged.

Visits to the headquarters of the different sports and exchanges with representatives of other nations will also mark the meeting, an essential phase in the midst of the preparations for a competition that will be hosted by an Asian nation for the second time.

We recently finished in fifth place in the Pan American Games for the Deaf in Canoas, Brazil, one more step that encourages and forces us to work better and better to improve ourselves, Palma assured after remembering that the Island's representatives won 22 medals, four of them of gold.

They were excellent results, it was improved compared to the previous participation and we are happy with that, he added.

The Deaflympiads premiered in Paris in 1924 and “left” European territory for the first time in 1965, when they were organized in the American city of Washington. (Text and photo: JIT)