Ivan Pedroso: “In Jordan I know I have a diamond”

Jordan Diaz won in Rome european gold triple jump with 18.18m, the third best brand in historyand his coach Ivan Pedroso He said they had a strategy and it worked out perfectly. “First he wants to jump a medal and then gradually build up to reach exactly the fifth attempt and deploy his Maximum potential“said the Cuban coach, Olympic gold medalist in Sydney 2000 and nine-time world champion, who has the best jumper school in the world in Guadalajara (Spain). Ana Peleteirothe European triple champion in Rome is also one of his achievements as a coach.

In the first test, Jordan He jumped 17.56m, guaranteeing a medal with a mark difficult to reach for most rivals except Pedro PichardoPortuguese born in Cuba. “In the first jumps I didn’t want him to go in that fast. I prefer that he enter in an upward fashion and increase his speed with each attempt,” he said. “When we got to the fifth attempt, I just had to lean my body to be comfortable.” more space and run with all your strength”, and that was the indication he gave to his disciple so that he could completely change his advice in a historic leap.

Jordan Diaz debuted on the shirt Spain in Rome because he obtained the nationality in February 2022 after leaving Cuba and he obtained it through the fast track, approved by the Council of Ministers by letter of nature. And when he came, he began to work with Pedroso and signed for the athletics section of Barçahis favorite club and his training partner’s house Yulimar Rojas. “In Cuba there is a system for detecting talents and coaches that are so well organized that it is easy to get prodigies like Jordan,” he explained. Pedroso about your country’s system.

“Like that diamondsthat you have to go to the mines to get them out and then polish them“, said. “There the coaches are in charge of going to the schools, even in the most distant provinces, to see the sports abilities of the children and that is why the talent is not lost,” he said. “The children They try all sports and even they do athletics They go through all modalities. If it stands out, it is polished. And if at that moment there is a coach from another sport who sees extraordinary abilities in him, he will hire him. That doesn’t happen in Spain. It is the children who have to sign up for the sports center and that makes it difficult for them,” he said.

“When I met Jordan the same thing happened to me as in Yulimar Rojas“I know that I have a diamond and I need to polish it so that I can jump more,” he confessed of an athlete who has already become world champion in the Under-18 and Under-20 categories and at the age of 16. has passed 17 meters. “Jordan is fast, but he hasn’t released everything yet,” he says. “We are not thinking about Edwards’ record (18.29m). We think about improving every day the details that made him jump that 18.18m. Let’s go to him good way“, he said, being optimistic about the games.