After the very first coaching session with lengthy jumper Jeswin Aldrin, Cuban coach Yoandri Betanzos realized that the Tamil Nadu teenager belonged within the 8metre membership. In just some months after his arrival on the JSW services in Bellary, Jeswin breached the mark with an 8.20m leap final month within the Indian Grand Prix. “I told him I could easily take him beyond the 8m mark and I proved it,” Betanzos mentioned.
“I corrected Jeswin’s arm place, the strides, the momentum and the autumn. We have been bettering lots however there’s nonetheless lots to enhance on,” he adds. Betanzos, 40, a two time World Championship silver medalist, comes from a family of sportspersons. His father is still an active boxing coach, his mother was a sprinter, and his brother is a former jumper. In fact, his mother, a sprinter Amarilis Francis almost gave birth to him on the track. “It’s true. My mother was jumping over hurdles during a training session and felt a sharp pain and she was hastened to the hospital and I was born,” he narrates the incident with a vivid smile on his face. Growing up, Betanzos at all times knew he would turn into a sportsperson however he wasn’t positive which sport to pursue a profession in.
He tried to comply with in his father Alvaro’s footsteps and took up the boxing gloves at eight however quickly switched to athletics. He began off as a excessive jumper however his coach Rafael Alvarez thought Betanzos wasn’t tall sufficient for the occasion. A change to triple leap yielded good outcomes and he was quickly absorbed into the junior nationwide set-up.
“I started very early. From eight until 34 I was an athlete and now at 40, I am a coach. My life was and is only sports,” says the daddy of three.
Cuban coach Yoandri Betanzos. (Express Photo)
Betanzos is presently guiding a number of high jumpers together with Pravin Chitravel, the highest triple jumper final yr with 16.88m, Sherin, and Asian Games champion Arpinder Singh. Chitravel, who had beforehand educated with French coach Antony Yaich, has spent two months underneath the Cuban coach and feels he has improved in all features. “My coaching has improved immensely. He focuses each on energy and method.
He corrected the way in which I used to be lifting my toes throughout jumps and that has helped me add extra explosiveness to my jumps,” says Chitravel. Even earlier than his arrival, coach Betanzos was supplied with an inventory of athletes and their coaching and competitors movies for evaluation. “The first batch of corrections and options have been despatched to the athletes even earlier than I landed within the nation. I studied all of the athletes and so they have comparable kinds and strategies when in comparison with Cubans,” he says.
Cuban coach Yoandri Betanzos. (Express Photo)
Although it is nonetheless early days, Betanzos has no qualms in admitting that he’s dreaming huge. “I am here so that India has a world medal in jumps,” he says with conviction. Betanzos’s perception can’t be questioned. Despite harboring an damage he pushed himself on the Athens Olympics and managed a fourth-place, simply agonizing one centimeter from a bronze medal with a 17.47m. In the qualifying stage, he had leapt 17.54m — one cm lower than what the silver medal went for within the finals.
“Oh don’t ask. I still feel terrible about missing the medal by just one centimeter. I can’t do anything now. Now my athletes will have to fulfill my dream,” he says.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
