Cuban badminton player (born 1989)
Badminton player
| Osleni Guerrero |
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| Birth name | Osleni Guerrero Velazco |
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| Country | Cuba |
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| Born | (1989-10-18) 18 October 1989 (age 34)
Havana, Cuba |
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| Height | 1.89 m (6 ft 2 in)[1] |
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| Handedness | Right[1] |
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| Highest ranking | 43 (MS 5 March 2015)
65 (MD 13 August 2019)
93 (XD 22 October 2019) |
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| Current ranking | 124 (MS), 139 (MD), 158 (XD) (26 April 2022) |
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| BWF profile |
Osleni Guerrero Velazco (born 18 October 1989) is a Cuban badminton player. He is the first Cuban badminton player to win a medal in the Pan American Games.[2] Guerrero also competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics.[3]
Career
Guerrero, born in Havana, started competing in badminton in 2000, and joined the national team in 2005.[1] As a junior player he won the under-19 category at the 2007 Pan Am Junior Badminton Championships held at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where he beat first seed Howard Shu of the US, 21–13, 21–10 in the final.[1]
Guerrero won a bronze medal in the men's singles event at the 2015 Pan Am Games, losing the semi-final to Canadian Andrew D'Souza.[4] In the 2011 Pan American Games he made history, reaching the final and a silver [an Am Games medal for Cuba at badminton for the first time. He eventually lost that final to first seeded Kevin Cordón of Guatemala with 13–21, 19–21.
Guerrero competed in 2014 and 2015 BWF World Championships. He is a member of the Cuban national badminton team since 2005. He twice won the continental Pan American Badminton Championship. First in 2013[5] at Santo Domingo,[6] beating first seeded American Sattawat Pongnairat 17–21, 21–6, 21–16 in a close 51 minutes final. In 2014 at Markham[7] venue, he successfully defended his Pan American badminton title, this time beating another American Bjorn Seguin in another close fought final of 58 minutes with 19–21, 21–14, and 21–13.[8] Guerrero won many events in the Pan American Badminton circuit.[9][10][11][12][13]
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Guerrero played the men's singles event in Group J with Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia, and Howard Shu of United States. He placed second in the group standing after won a match to Shu, but lost to Sugiarto.[3] He won the silver medal at the 2017 Pan Am Championships defeated by the Brazilian Ygor Coelho de Oliveira in the final.[14]
In 2018, he won four medals at the Central American and Caribbean Games, a gold medal in the mixed doubles, also three silver medals in the men's singles, doubles, and team events.
In 2019, he reached the finals at the Pan Am Championships in two different events, won a gold medal in the men's singles event.
