Havana, December 23 - The Cuban youth Baseball5 team narrowly won the collective category in the poll conducted by the Prensa Latina agency to choose the best athletes of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025.
In Tepic, Mexico, the second experience in a Youth World Championship took place, and for Cuba, it was as successful as the first, with only one set lost, and another group of boys full of talent.
Some matches were complicated, but the Cubans showed the street-smart savvy of a neighborhood player that no commercial store can buy, and well led by their coaches, they managed to score the necessary runs in each case.
It was no obstacle that six of the eight team members stepped onto a non-domestic field for the first time, and the throne remains with the same owner even as the young sport continues to grow globally.
These boys' goal is the upcoming Youth Olympic Games, where this discipline will debut, and they launched a serious candidacy for the crown, just in case anyone had doubts.
The collective category was fiercely contested until the last day, when in a spectacular sprint, Cuban Baseball5 outpaced the Argentine football team, qualified for the 2026 World Cup and leader of the South American qualifiers.
The difference was just four votes, 37 to 33, and was decided in the final hours, with an avalanche of Cuban media favoring their compatriots.
This was the tenth time a Cuban team has won since this category was created in 1980, and the first for this recently created discipline.
Between these two teams they took more than half of the votes, although several Brazilian teams also joined the contest.
The women’s volleyball team, second place in the Nations League and bronze in the Thailand World Championship, and the Flamengo basketball (champion of the Basketball Champions League Americas) and football clubs (holder of the Copa Libertadores) received considerable support.
Also voted for were the Venezuelan softball team, the football teams of Panama, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Haiti, and the baseball teams Diablos Rojos of Mexico and Leones del Escogido of the Dominican Republic.
Completing the list of vote recipients were the Salvadoran beach soccer team, the Mexican football club Cruz Azul, and the Águilas Cibaeñas of Dominican baseball.
(Taken from Prensa Latina)
