Iván Pedroso

Iván Pedroso in 2010

Iván Lázaro Pedroso Soler ( born December 17, 1972 in Havana ) is a former Cuban long jumper. He is Olympic champion and four -time world champion.

Sports career

Pedroso jumped already the age of 17, the eight -meter mark. Earlier in his career he found in Carl Lewis and Mike Powell still strong competition. After their retirement from competitive sports Pedroso rose to dominant athletes in the long jump. From 1993 to 2001 he won five times in a row the title at the IAAF World Indoor Championships. At the World Athletics Championships in the open, he won four times in a row: 1995 in Gothenburg, 1997 in Athens, in 1999 in Seville and 2001 in Edmonton.

His sports career he crowned at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney when he won the gold medal with a jump of 8.55 m. Four years earlier he had become only twelfth at the Games in Atlanta.

The World Cup title in 2001 was his last major international triumph. At the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, his last major competition, Pedroso reached the seventh place.

On July 29, 1995 in Sestriere Pedroso jumped 8.96 m wide, an inch above the existing world record by Mike Powell in 1991. The measured tailwind was allowed at 1.2 m / s, however, showed video footage an Italian coach who before him the Windmeßgerät was staying and shielded by it. The jump was therefore not recognized as a world record. On 18 July 1995, he graduated with 8.71 m his official longest jump in Salamanca.

Ivan Pedroso has a competition weight of 70 kg at a height of 1.76 m. The end of 2007 he announced his retirement from competitive sports.

Since 2010 he works as a trainer of the French three Springers Teddy Tamgho.