Daimi Pernia of Cuba (© AFP / Getty Images)
Cuba's 1999 World 400m Hurdles champion Daimí Pernía has announced her retirement after 11 years in the event. She still holds the national record with 52.89 seconds, which still ranks her ninth on the all-time list.
A former basketball player, Pernía took up the hurdles in 1996 and broke the national record a year later with 55.51 seconds and claimed her first international success with her bronze medal run at the 1997 World University Games in Sicily.
Sidelined in 1998 through injury, the slender athlete had a breakthrough in 1999 when she achieved a hat trick: the World University Games in Mallorca, the Pan American Games in Winnipeg and the World title in Seville with 52.89.
However, injuries hampered her progress and she finished fourth in the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. A year later, she returned to the podium with a bronze medal at the World Championships in Edmonton.
"I had believed I had a chance to compete in the Beijing Olympics, both in the hurdles and the relay. But I had a low par year, plagued with injuries and a contraction in my left calf," she said.
“Anyway, sports have given me many satisfactions and I hope to be involved one way or the other," she added.
Pernía, who will turn 31 on December 27, did five 400m Hurdles races this season, but could not improve from her first race (56.98) when she took the 2nd ALBA Games title in Caracas, in May.
She finished eighth at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, but returned home with her third continental gold as a member of the winning 4x400m relay team.
The same squad finished seventh at the World Championships in Osaka.
Pernía also won the Pan American silver in Santo Domingo 2003, the Iberoamerican gold in Huelva 2004 and the Central American and Caribbean Games in Cartagena.
At World Cups, she ran in the winning 4x400m quartet in Madrid 2002 and finished fifth in her individual race in Athens 2006.
Javier Clavelo Robinson for the IAAF