Leyanis Pérez: The Cuban Queen vying to dethrone Yulimar Rojas

You cannot write about the triple jump without mentioning the Cubans, for whom the sport has become part of their national psyche.  Even when the undisputed Queen of the Triple Jump – la reina del triple salto – is from Venezuela.  But we will try.  The women’s triple jump in the Paris Olympics this summer has been robbed of its long-time leading light, with the torn Achilles tendon of Yulimar Rojas leaving her heart broken and those of many track and field fans worldwide.  She has lit up an event that for many years was in the shadows, the questions around the late career doping convictions of then World Record-holder and inaugural women’s 1996 Olympic Champion Inessa Kravets (World Record 15.50m, 1995-2021), consigned to the past with a leap of 15.67m to win Olympic Gold in Tokyo in 2021.  The following March, she took the record out to 15.74m with a glorious final round jump to win the World Indoor Championships Gold in Belgrade and she has truly become a star of track and field and beyond.  It is not just the triple jump in Paris that will be poorer with her absence and despite some serious wobbles when winning her fourth consecutive World Championships Gold in Hungary in 2023, a final round 15.08m pipping Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk of what would have been a deserved victory, a fully fit Rojas would have been one of the hottest of hot favourites for Gold in Paris, along with the likes of pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and middle distance queen Faith Kipyegon, giants who stand astride their events. 

Because Rojas is a veritable giant, head and shoulders above even many male athletes at 1.92m (6ft 3in) tall and with a unique blend of athleticism and all-round power that has carried her further as a triple jumper than any woman before.  She is an iconoclastic figure who has single-handedly changed the perception of her event in bettering a long-time World Record many believed was unreachable, when everyone else was still struggling around 15 metres.  The field in Paris is wide open, claimants to Rojas’ Olympic crown including Bekh-Romanchuk and Shanieka Ricketts, the only women to twice go over 15 metres since the World Record, Thea LaFond who took World Indoor Championships Gold in Glasgow earlier this year with a World Leading 15.01m and Ana Peleteiro, training partner of Rojas, Olympic Bronze medallist in Tokyo and the European Champion since June.

One of these athletes is very likely to win Gold, with many tipping Bekh-Romanchuk to finally win a global title, yet what if we told you that a young athlete is approaching Paris in the form of her life, winning three Diamond League legs this season and covering 15.16m in Guadalajara, Spain this June, only marginally over the wind limit at +2.3m/s.  And what if we were to tell you of her similarities to Rojas, the Queen of the Triple Jump who will soon lose her Olympic crown, perhaps being succeeded by this joyous young athlete from the small Caribbean island of Cuba that has been crying out for an Olympic Champion in the event they have long considered their own, frequently being set back by their very best athletes choosing to represent wealthier nations looking to fund their own success in the event.

The very best Cuban athletes, particularly triple jumpers, have been departing their island home for the riches on offer in mainland Europe for a number of years, men’s 2020 Olympic and 2022 World Champion Pedro Pichardo representing Portugal since 2019 and now the National Record holder for two countries.  More recently Jordan Díaz switched to Spain before blowing into the European Championships in Rome in June like a hurricane in his first international competition, covering the third-farthest distance of all-time at 18.18m on a springy surface and making him a strong favourite for Gold in Paris.  But neither is representing the country of their birth and both have been critical of the lack of support on offer for them in their homeland, despite the leading exponents of the event being proliferated by Cubans since former men’s World Record-holder Pedro Pérez became their first great triple jumper in the 1970’s and before Yoelbi Quesada in 1997 and Yargelis Savigne in 2007 and 2009 became men’s and women’s World Champions respectively.  Díaz himself passed up the chance to compete for Cuba in the re-arranged Olympics in 2021, choosing to take up the significant financial rewards on offer in Spain (as well as vastly superior training facilities) and his choice is looking a fine one following his exploits in Rome.  Cuba has never won an Olympic Gold medal in the triple jump (Yoel García took Silver in 2000 with Quesada in 1996 and Savigne in 2008 both taking Bronze), yet the last couple of years has revealed to the world a young Cuban athlete with enormous potential, who could finally be the one to reach the global peak for her nation that has seemingly been just out of reach for so long.

Born on 10 January 2002 in El Rancho, Pinar del Río, the Cuban tobacco-growing province where Pedro Pérez was also born, Leyanis Pérez Hernández grew up in humble beginnings like Yulimar Rojas, who herself began life in a rickety shack, or ranchito as they are known in Venezuela.  El Rancho roughly translates as ‘The Ranch’ and Rojas and later Leyanis Pérez would grow into sporty teenagers in the wide spaces around their neighbourhoods, with both having the long legs and sprinter’s speed that streamed them first towards the high jump in particular.  The triple jump has ‘found’ many of the greats over the years and Pérez was quickly identified as having the necessary physical traits to specialise in the event, focussing on it from the age of sixteen and in 2018 reaching the national U20 squad.  The following season she covered 14 metres for the first time and like Rojas suffered some early disappointment when only claiming Silver in the 2019 Pan American U20 Games.  The Covid-19 Pandemic disrupted the subsequent season, having set a Personal Best 14.15m in March 2020 and despite reaching 14.53m the following year in Castellón, Spain, she would suffer the extreme personal disappointment of missing the re-arranged Tokyo Games with an injury, although later that year she would win the Junior Pan American Games title in Cali, Colombia still operating off a shortened nine-step approach as part of her structured training.

Pérez is very tall for a women’s triple jumper at 1.88m (6ft 2in) and blessed with both co-ordination and ground speed, comparable in that combination only with the 1.92m (6ft 3in) tall Rojas and she announced herself on the world stage with fourth place in the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, a best effort of 14.70m a significant 12cm improvement on her Personal Best in an event that Rojas won with a massive effort of 15.47m.  People had begun to take notice of this leggy Cuban, who competed with as much joy as the celebrated Venezuelan and was seemingly only beginning to scratch at the surface of her rich potential.  The following season saw her improve to 14.98m at the Central American and Caribbean Games in July in San Salvador, behind Rojas’ winning effort of 15.16m and she had already claimed her maiden Diamond League victory that May in Rabat.  The 2023 World Championships brought a fine Bronze medal for her in Budapest, her first global medal, with a distance of 14.96m headlining a series of consistently excellent jumps and she ended the season with victory in the Pan American Games, which Rojas skipped to focus on her preparation for the all-important Paris Olympics, the ultimate prize in track and field.

By now hailed in her homeland as the Cuban Queen, the 2024 season has shown Pérez’s career trajectory ever rising and even beginning to quicken, still aged only twenty-two but experienced as an international athlete and at the time of writing already a two-time global medallist.  A Silver in the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March against a strong field – Rojas was absent with some discomfort in her leg, that eventually became a full-blown Achilles tendon tear in April – was followed by notable Diamond League victories in Eugene and Stockholm in May and June.  On 23 June she passed 15 metres for the first time in Guadalajara, the benchmark for an elite women’s triple jumper, covering 15.16m with a fair but illegal tailwind of 2.3m/s and she should be amongst the leading contenders in Paris on the evening of 3 August, despite others like Bekh-Romanchuk, LaFond and Ricketts being more hotly tipped.

Pérez went into her final Diamond League event before the Olympics in Monaco on 12 July seeking to prove her credentials for the podium in Paris and in favourable wind conditions on an evening of Season Bests for the major contenders, she may have already separated herself from the pack.  The Cuban covered 14.95m in the third round and 14.96m in the fifth on her way to victory, her third in the Diamond League of 2024 and it may well be that her prodigious talent is now ready to take her beyond the group of women that have chased the shadows of Rojas for years with distances around 15 metres.  She has escaped the barrio through her sporting talent, is easily characterised by her combination of height and all-round co-ordination, and deserves much praise for not turning her back on the economically-troubled nation she hails from like many others... we could well be speaking of Rojas and the similarities between them may yet go further with an Olympic title for the young Cuban.

The sport needs a new hero with the GOAT now stricken by a serious injury, one which men’s great Christian Taylor could never fully return from and an athlete like Pérez who has spoken of wanting “to bring joy to the Cuban people” richly deserves our attention this summer.  Cuba has long awaited an Olympic Champion in the triple jump – importantly this time in their national colours – and Leyanis Pérez, the Cuban Queen, could well be the one to succeed Yulimar Rojas, the Queen of the Triple Jump, as Olympic Champion.  And that itself could be the stepping stone to the biggest distances that only the Venezuelan of this current generation of triple jumpers has been capable of reaching and Pérez could yet go on to challenge the biggest names in the all-time lists.

Written by Andy Benns, co-author of the best-selling Triple Jump Trailblazers published in 2023, which includes the acclaimed Harvey-Benns Method of athletics appraisal, fairly evaluating the performances of the greatest athletes throughout history.  Website: https://harveybennsmethod.com