Yulimar Rojas fulfills her golden routine and demands more: "It has not been one of my best days"

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Rivals pass behind her, jumping, trying to look like her, a little, not even a little, approach her, touch her, threaten her?

Coaches shout around, giving instructions to their trainees, foot here, foot there, arm here, arm there.

And dusk falls behind the bleachers of Hayward Field, far away, in some beautiful mountains, the Cascade Range that rises almost 3,500 meters.

All this happens while

receives instructions from

.

It doesn't matter that she is the champion of everything, that she has broken the world record twice;

It doesn't matter that both have been together, coach and pupil, for six years.

Between jump and jump, Pedroso corrects Rojas this and that, a thousand things, and she questions him as if she were a junior with a lot to learn.

They don't get a break.

Most trainers write down a couple of things and leave it;

the Cuban coach, on the other hand, talks so much from the stands that Rojas gets tired, puts on his jacket and sits down.

Perhaps it is the secret of her success.

Maybe not.

What were they saying?

It has been a strange year because of the injury [a contracture in the psoas of his left leg], with few competitions and Iván wanted me to relax, to flow, to take away the tension.

Then when he was jumping he insisted on the same thing, that I enjoy.

It was that.

Rojas won the World Cup again and he did it as if there were no other possible result because there was no other possible result.

"It has not been one of my best days, I wanted a better brand", he proclaims and wait to read what happened.

On his second attempt he liquidated the competition with a flight of 15.47 meters.

A bad brand?

The sixth best brand ever.

In all of history only one other woman jumped more,

, the previous world record holder.

So exaggerated is the level of Rojas, so distanced from the rest of the jumpers that have existed and will exist that one bad day goes into the books.

In fact, in the third jump she reached 15.24 meters and in the sixth and last, up to 15.39.

In the fourth, a magnificent attempt, she stepped on the board and the wind was illegal, but she would have broken her record again [15.74 meters].

"That is the only jump in which I have managed to feel, catch the wind well," explains the jumper who has not lost an international competition, not a single one, since the 2016 Rio Olympics, that is, for six years.

If she had not experienced an administrative mess with the shoes she uses and they had let her compete in the long jump, no one doubts that she would have starred in an unprecedented double, extremely rare, almost impossible.

Were you thinking of breaking the 16 meter barrier now? The 16 meters are my most important goal.

I know I'm close, I know things are going to flow.

I feel that they are in my legs, but details have to be adjusted, little things have to be fixed so that everything works.

I hope to jump better in the next competition.

His objective, as he revealed, was to break the record for the championships [15.50 meters, by Kravets], but he settled for setting the best mark of the year.

When she got that second jump, the good jump, she made some gestures, knees up, arms down, like the wrestler

, a choreography that sprinter

had already done , and from then on she was more relaxed.

As soon as he finished the contest, despite his disappointment, he danced, and danced, and danced.

"I always dance, no matter what happens," Rojas confirmed in a crude battle against herself.

"Budapest, Budapest, it will be in Budapest," she threatened in reference to the World Cup venue next year.

Can't conceive of anything else.

His legs, his head... his whole being is destined to beat the 16-meter barrier in a great championship.

It will be then when she may lose her hunger, the one that distinguishes her, even if she threatens it under an ocean of smiles and flow.

It will be then when perhaps, and only perhaps, Iván Pedroso will stop talking to her, advising her, guiding her from the stands while she listens and asks questions, while her rivals jump, while the other coaches shout, while life, in short, goes by .

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