Leon shines bright in Tokyo - Polish player in the spotlight of the world's media 

It doesn't happen often that a Volleyball player, especially before the medal finishes, is in the center of attention of some of the most globally recognised newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but Wilfredo Leon is an extraordinary player. On July 31, he turned 28 years old, and although it's hard to imagine for many, Tokyo 2020 is his Olympic debut. One of greatest Volleyball superstars along with Poland's national team fight hard to make their Olympic (gold) dream come true and to make his already impressive trophy collection even more stunning.

The Cuban-born outside spiker and one of the world’s best players made his debut in the squad of the two-time world champions in late-July 2019, right on time for the Olympic Qualifier Tournament in Gdansk, where Poland won their ticket for Tokyo 2020. Two years later, Leon leads Poland in the quest for Olympic glory. His inspiring story and life journey could not remain unnoticed by the journalists from all around the world, so today you can read How a Cuban Émigré Became a Polish Volleyball God in the New York Times and Wilfredo León, the Cristiano Ronaldo of Volleyball, Powers Poland at the Olympics in the Wall Street Journal.

Wilfredo Leon with his unbelievable skills and technique was a key player of Poland leading his team through the preliminary round, being Poland's best scorer at this stage talling 74 points - 57 kills, 4 block stuffs and 13 aces (5 of them he served in the last match against Canada!). Looking at his performance match by match you can see visible progress, especially on serving line - as expected for the King of Vertical Jump who was breaking serving records during VNL and was then able to serve 13 aces in one match - but still he is currently the best server in Tokyo, too.

The two-time reigning champions with Leon in the roster are one of the top medal contenders in Tokyo, but ahead of them a do-or-die quarterfinal battle against France. Although quarterfinal stage, in general, is the critical point of the rivalry, for Poland it's extremely important to finally go through it successfully, as at the last four Games - Athens, Beijing, London and Rio - when they were also listed as one of the favourites they were painfully eliminated, thus for a few past years you could hear about the 'Olympic quarterfinal curse'. However, the current team under guidance of Vital Heynen, like Wilfredo Leon himself are highly-motivated to finally take Olympic gold home, repeating the only Olympic success of Poland from Montreal 1976.

The quarterfinal clash between Poland and France is scheduled on Tuesday at 14:30 (CEST).