Havana, May 12 (RHC).- Cubans Yarisleidys Cirilo and José Ramón Pelier largely dominated their semi-final and will aim for the gold medals in their respective modalities at the Sprint Canoe World Cup, which will be held in Szeged, Hungary.

In the season-opening Cup, Cirilo, the C-2 world champion last year in Canada, won her C-1 200m semi-final with 48.17 seconds, the fastest time of any competitor. .

The best athlete of last year in Cuba and Olympic finalist in Tokyo-2020 clearly exceeded the occupant of the second place, the Spaniard Antia Jacome (48.71) and will go for gold in the modality this Friday.

Their opponents in the final will be Jacome, China’s Lin Wenjun and Canada’s Katie Vincent.

Born in the province of Guantánamo (far east of Cuba), Cirilo did not suffer the same fate in the C-2 of the 500 meters, where she finished fifth pairing with newcomer Mailienys Calderón. With a time of 2.04.39, the Cubans will be in the B final.

Meanwhile, Pelier, also an Olympic finalist in Tokyo-2020 and medalist in several World Cups, dominated his C-1 semi-final in the 1000m with 4.01.21 minutes, ahead of Canadian Coonor Fiztpatrick (4.04.25) . He is one of the candidates for the gold medal.

The other Cubans who competed on Friday could not be included in the A final in search of medals. Calderón finished sixth in his C1 200m semi-final, in K1 500 Yurieni Herrera also finished sixth in his semi-final and in K1 1000m Robert Benítez finished third. All three will be in the B final in these terms.

Only Olympic champion Serguey Torres and his C2 partner in the 500m, Tabiani Diéguez, remain to start. Sergei will also be in C1 at 5000m.