CUBAN • PRESIDENTIAL

The personal story of museum founder János Angyal about this sport relic

Javier Sotomayor, World Record Holder of high jump, Olympic and World Champion competed at the Jumping Gala four times. He was very popular and always won the crowd – and the competition.

Prior to his retirement, Sotomayor had his last jump in Europe at the Jumping Gala in Somoskő on August 26, 2001. At the banquet following the competition I was presented with a lovely surprise as that evening he gave me a bottle of Cuban rum and a Cuban cigar in a beautiful gift box which he signed “Para Janos de Sotomayor…”

He told me that Fidel Castro gave him 12 gift boxes of this most famous Cuban cigar to acknowledge him being chosen as the best athlete of Cuba of the 20th century. To further elevate the prestige of this gift, Sotomayor came to the Jumping Gala from Salamanca where he jumped his World Record of 245 centimetres and at a charity auction there, one of the boxes that he signed was sold for 100 thousand dollars.