CubaPLUS Magazine

Erick Hernández, a master of the ball

By: Adrián Mengana Martínez Photos: Ricardo López Hevia
Erick Hernández, a master of the ball

Armed with a great technical arsenal and mental focus, Cuba’s Erick Hernández has a unique skills at records, a football and achieving the unattainable by mastering a ball. Hernández holds more than 45 world records with almost every part of his body - thighs, knees, feet, head, running the 100 meters and the marathon - and proudly boasts two firsts in the Guinness Book of World Records, a reference work published annually containing a collection of world records of both human achievements and in the natural world.

In his latest attempt this year, the Cuban, known as the Dominator, bounced the ball on his head 351 times in one minute, beating China’s Gao Chong by 10 bounces.
Erick Hernández, a master of the ball
The Caribbean player said he had prepared intensively and worked on his lower body (calf muscles, biceps femoris and quadriceps) and upper body (trapezius, sternocleidomastoid, pectorals, biceps brachii, triceps brachii and deltoid), in a very complex context due to the impact of the COVID-19.

Nine years ago at the Copacabana Hotel in Havana, Hernández set his own record of 350 ball bounces on his head, but it was not registered by Guinness, where his record is for touching the ball 319 times for one minute with his head, and hitting the ball with his thighs in one hour and 28 minutes.

After shattering the Asian’s record, the Cuban said he will now take a break and then start preparing to break another record, that of 10 hours and nine minutes dominating the ball with his feet.

A Real Madrid fan, born in Havana on May 6, 1966, the Cuban’s passion for sport began with football at the age of 10 when he played his first official match with the Boyeros municipal team.

He went on to play in seven national championships for the Ciudad Habana club, where he played against historical figures of the country such as Jorge Massó, Eugenio Ruiz and Carlos González.

Inspired by the example of his brother Douglas Hernández, a forerunner of ball control in Cuba, he took up the sport in 1994, with the help of coach Luis Olmasa, the great architect of most of his exploits.

Nowadays, he tries to motivate youngsters such as Luis Carlos García, Jhoen Lefont and Lázaro Curbelo, who competes in the disabled area, to keep the love for this speciality alive and encourage them in the spirit of sacrifice in order to give Cuba more world records.

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