Revista PODIUM, January-April 2019; 14(1): 125-128
Translated from the original in spanish
King Hector in the Hall of fame
El rey Héctor en el Hall de la fama
Martín Torres Peguero1, Elizardo Ríos Morales1, Eduardo de Jesús de la Maza Sánchez1
1Universidad de Pinar del Río "Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca", Pinar del Río, Cuba. E-mail: martin.torres@upr.edu.cu ; eduardoj.maza@upr.edu.cu
Received: July 11th, 2018.
Accepted: January 11th, 2019.
The sports fight is considered among the oldest sports, as its origin is related to the appearance of man on earth. It still remains the preference of many young people from different latitudes thanks to the changes it has undergone through the socioeconomic formations that humanity has known.
Cuba, since the Revolutionary triumph of 1959, has stood out internationally in the different competitions of this sport, obtaining relevant successes and counting in these moments with several Central American, Pan American, World and Olympic champions.
The province of Pinar del Río has had much to do in obtaining these achievements, contributing fighters of extraordinary quality as they are: Alejandro Puerto, Lázaro Reinoso, Wilfredo García, Yoel Romero, Mario Olivera, Mijaín López, Luis Méndez, Yasmany Lugo, Liván López and Héctor Milián, among others. Precisely, this work deals with the sporting career and results of the latter, glory of sport in Pinar del Rio and Cuba.
On May 14, 1968, in the town of Taco Taco, in the municipality of San Cristóbal (formerly belonging to the province of Pinar del Río), Héctor Milián Pérez, the 20th century fighter from Pinar del Río, Cuba, was born. His walk in the sport begins in this locality, in a special area, where he practices athletics, in the specialty of throwing.
His love for combat sports is related to his uncle Ángel Milián, an outstanding former boxer from Pinar del Río, who always wanted his nephew to be linked to his sport. But one day, being in the area of pitching, they were looking for talents for the fight and when they saw him they noticed his strength and stature; in this way he arrives at Ormani Arenado Llonch Sports Initiation School (EIDE) of his native province, under the tutelage of his coaches Fernando Landa and Lorenzo Echevarría.
His successes begin early; in 1983 he participated in the Inter EIDE Games held in Holguín, in the category 15-17 years old, where he won four fights and lost one, with which he won the silver medal in the 90 kg division.
In 1984, being a schoolboy, he participates in the 90 kg division in the first category held in Matanzas, achieving two victories and two defeats, and in the Team Tournament, held in the province of Granma, where he obtains five victories and one defeat, placing his team in fifth place. That same year, in the Inter EIDE Games developed in Pinar del Río the take off of his great successes begins, obtaining the gold medal in the division of 90 kg of the category 15-17 years, with four successes and two failures.
He begins the year 1985 participating in the first category in Camagüey, where with five successes and two lost fights he obtains the fifth place in the division of 90 kg. In July, in the province of Holguín, he won the gold medal in the 87 kg division in the School Games in the 15-17 age category and closed the year in October with the gold medal in the Youth Championship held in Villa Clara, with six victories without the shadow of failures. Accredited by these successes, he went on to the Superior School of Athletic Improvement (ESPA), with coaches Silvio Michel and Alejo Morales.
He dispute the first category in the Isle of Youth, in 1986, in the division of 90 kg with Guillermo Cruz Vasquez, from Pinar del Río too, with whom he loses and is proclaimed national runner-up. In the youth event held in Camagüey, he won gold in the 100 kg division with seven victories. With these records he participates in the World Youth Championship of Greek Wrestling, celebrated in Germany in 1986, being titled in the division of the 90 kilograms.
In 1987 he entered the Cuban national preselection, under the direction of the experienced coach Pedro Val, who manifested on one occasion: "Milián began with us at the beginning of 1987 and he was a boy with great aptitudes, but he needed an intense work of learning that polished him in the technical order. In this sport, strength must be combined with intelligence...". Redpinar, (2016).
That same year he participated in the Pan American Games in Indianapolis, where he defeated U.S. favorite Dennis Koslowski in the final.
The 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul could have been his first participation in such an event, but it was limited by Cuba's non-participation for a just cause.
At the Pan American Games in Havana in 1991, he defeated James Johnson in the discussion of the top 100 kilogram award.
The Olympic Games of Barcelona (1992), in which he was the standard-bearer of the Cuban delegation, constituted his consecration as an athlete. In this event, he defeated in his first fight, with remarkable technical quality, the 1990 world title holder, Serguei Demyashkevich 1-0, from the Commonwealth of Independent States (the name under which the former Soviet republics competed), and then the Senegalese Alioune Diouf, for disqualification. In the quarter-finals he defeated Bulgarian Atanas Komtshev 8-2, while in the semi-finals he defeated Germany's Andreas Steinbach 10-4. Again in the final against the American Dennis Koslowski, he was outperformed by him 2-1 in additional time, proclaiming Olympic Champion.
At this stage he is called "El Rey Héctor" among his colleagues and admirers, because he specialized in performing suplés and unbalances in four points, his favorite techniques, with which he was unbeatable between 1990 and 1992 in the 100 kg. "He, however, like every great champion, shows all the modesty that characterizes him and says that he does not consider himself a hero, but a man of the people whom he always represented with honor and dignity". Morales, (2012).
After the Barcelona Olympics his knees started to give him a lot of problems and he had to have surgery. From that moment on, he found it necessary to improve other combat techniques, because it was difficult for him to execute the projections with Arqueo (Suplés) in order to project his adversaries.
During the 1993-1996 Olympic cycle, things didn't go very well for him, due to serious injuries and difficulties in staying in the 100 kilogram division. For this reason, his participation in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was pending a decision by the International Federation, because a sprain in his right knee did not allow him to participate in the continental Olympic qualifying round held in Cali, Colombia.
"At the Olympic Games in Atlanta 1996 he came very weak, because in a very short time he had to lose just over fifty-seven pounds of weight. In the previous World Championships of that Olympic cycle, in 1994 and 1995, Milián had competed in the 130 kilograms, but in Atlanta he competed in the 100 kilograms, so he lacked strength" García (2013). There he won 12-0 against Colbie Bell (CAN) and 3-0 against Guiseppe Giunta (ITA), but lost 2-0 to Andrezj Wronski (POL) and 1-0 to Teymuraz Edisherashvili (RUS), finishing in fifth place.
His third Olympic Games were in Sydney in 2000, when he was thirty-two years old. "He won his first two bouts against Hallik Helger of Estonia 6-0 and Zhao Haillin of China 4-0, in both cases without receiving technical points, but he got out of the medal dispute when he fell in his next bout to Belarusian Dmitri Debelka 4-0. Although he beat Georgi Solddze 5-3 in the play-offs, he could not continue to advance, as Debelka was also defeated and could not drag him in the organization chart, being finally in fifth place. Torres, Ríos and Pérez, (2018).
In general, the main competitive results achieved by the stellar athlete are summarized in the following:
Other recognitions received include the following:
The historical references that are exposed in this work on the wrestler Hector Milián Perez Pinar del Río contribute to deepen the knowledge of the personalities that have given glory to this territory and in particular in the sport of keys and grabs in Pinar del Río.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
César Morales Buján. (2012, julio 19). Como un rey, grandes peleas, grandes victorias. Publicación del Instituto Nacional de Deportes, Educación Física y Recreación INDER. JIT, La actualidad del deporte cubano, 1. Recuperado a partir de http://www.jit.cu/new/InterviewDetails.aspx?idinter=97
García León, Joel. (2013, septiembre 20). El “rey Héctor” no ha muerto. CUBAHORA. Primera revista digital de Cuba, 1. Recuperado a partir de http://www.cubahora.cu/articulos-de-opinion/el-rey-hector-no-ha-muerto
Redpinar. (2016, octubre 14). Héctor Milián Pérez. Recuperado 18 de junio de 2018, a partir de http://www.redpinar.cu/es/glorias-deportivas/472-art-deportes-glorias-hector-milian
Torres Peguero, M., Ríos Morales, E., y Pérez Rodríguez, F. (2018). Material bibliográfico sobre Héctor Milián Pérez, luchador pinareño exaltado al Hall de la fama de la Federación Internacional de Luchas. Presentado en Ponencia presentada en el XVI FÓRUM de Ciencia y Técnica en la Facultad de Cultura Física de Pinar del Río, Pinar del Río, Cuba.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license
Copyright (c) 2019
Martín Torres Peguero, Elizardo Ríos Morales, Eduardo de Jesús de la Maza Sánchez.