Leyanis Pérez (right) and Yulimar Rojas celebrate their gold and silver medals at the World Indoor Championships.
Cuban star Leyanis Pérez (24) successfully defended her world indoor triple jump title on Saturday, holding off a strong challenge from Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas (30), who settled for silver in one of the most anticipated showdowns in Torun, Poland.
Pérez cemented her dominance in the event in 2025 by winning both the indoor and outdoor world titles, and she began 2026 on the same high note, leaping 14.95 meters to equal the best mark in the world this season.
Rojas, the undisputed queen of the triple jump until a severe Achilles tendon injury in training in April 2024, claimed silver with a jump of 14.86 meters. Senegal’s Saly Sarr took bronze with a personal best of 14.70 meters.
At the 2025 World Outdoor Championships in Tokyo, Rojas made a much-anticipated comeback after nearly two years away from her signature event, earning a bittersweet bronze medal. This time she moved up one step on the podium to silver but was unable to reclaim her typically commanding dominance.
Rojas entered the competition with the season’s best mark (14.95 m) but fell short of securing a fourth world indoor title, having previously won in 2016, 2018, and 2022. Four years ago at the indoor worlds in Belgrade, the Caracas native set a world record of 15.74 meters, a mark that still stands but remains out of reach since her Achilles injury, which marked a turning point in her career.
Leyanis Pérez has solidified her status as the new star of the event, earning her reputation with two world titles last year—both indoor and outdoor—plus an outdoor bronze in Budapest 2023, the last major championship where Rojas claimed gold.
Rojas’ next chance to regain the world title will come at the outdoor championships in Beijing in September 2027, where Pérez will once again enter as the defending champion.