SPORTS-CUBA: Athlete Says He Only Knows Cocaine from Movies

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Aug 5 1999 (IPS) - Cuban high-jumper Javier Sotomayor denied Thursday any possibility that he had taken drugs at the Pan American Games in Canada, and stated that he is the victim of a setup.

“To jump 2.30 I don’t even need to sleep,” he said Thursday in Havana, indignant about news that his most recent drug test revealed traces of cocaine. Sotomayor holds the world record for the high-jump.

Sotomayor, who returned to Cuba after winning the gold medal, said he is “sure that it is some kind of setup. I don’t know how it happened, but I am the victim of manipulation, of a dirty trick,” he declared.

“Among all the misdeeds the Cuban delegation has been subjected to” at the Pan American Games, “this has all the makings of being the worst,” wrote Enrique Montesinos in his sports commentary for the government newspaper “Granma.”

The results of the drug test were confirmed by the president of the Pan American Sports Organisation, Mario Vazquez Rana, who announced that Sotomayor would be stripped of his gold medal. The award would then go to Canadians Kwaku Boateng and Mark Boswell, who tied for second place.

This would have been the fourth consecutive medal for the Cuban high-jumper at the Pan American Games, despite competing this year with an injured back.

The only athlete that has jumped higher then 2.4 metres more than 20 times, Sotomayor, who is known to his compatriots as “the king of heights,” has held the outdoor world record in the high-jump since 1993, when he cleared 2.45 metres.

The 34-year-old Sotomayor has been declared the greatest athlete in Cuba and Latin America on more than one occasion. Cuban president Fidel Castro paid tribute Tuesday evening to the high- jumper and the other Cuban athletes who were victorious at the competitions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Canada.

Sotomayor has not been available to the foreign press in Cuba, and it was not until Thursday that his comments were first published by “Granma,” the official newspaper of the governing Communist Party of Cuba.

Sotomayor declared that he had only seen cocaine “in the movies.”

“The simple fact is that I don’t need it to jump 2.30. I have jumped that high more than 300 times, beginning 15 years ago in 1984,” he said.

El Soto, as he is called on the island, stated that he does not even take vitamins, though his coaches provide them for all the athletes. But because of his age, he said, he started taking spirulina, a seaweed-based health product.

The Cuban delegation in Winnipeg stated that Sotomayor has been subjected to more than 60 drug tests throughout his athletic career, with eight so far this year. Until now, the tests have always come back negative.

“They have checked me whenever they feel like it, even in the doorway to my house, in the Madrid airport, in Venezuela – almost a hundred times since I began to stand out at the international level,” commented Sotomayor.

The news of the drug test was received with disbelief on the island, where there is much talk about the pressures on the Cuban team from talent scouts in Winnipeg, as well as discussion of irregularities in the drawings for Cuba’s position in certain events and in some decisions made by event referees in Canada.

President Castro said July 26 that he had never seen “such dirtywork in a Pan American competition,” primarily blaming the United States, but also Canada because it is home to the Games’ headquarters.

Among the obstacles facing Cuban athletes, Castro mentioned the elimination of more than 100 gold medals in sports events traditionally dominated by Cuba.

“They want to eliminate the Cuban ghost. They are afraid of our teams. That is how they acknowledge the efforts of a little country that has the glory of beating the United States in a Pan American competition, something that no other nation in this hemisphere has done,” declared Castro.

Three days after Castro’s speech, the president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, Jose Ramon Fernandez, appealed “to sensibility and clean play” and said that the Pan American Games are “a sporting – not a political – event.”

“Granma” columnist Montesinos wrote, “Athletes ‘cheat’ fundamentally because of their longing for a victory that can mean huge sums of money in the currently over-commercialised international arena. This is not even remotely the case of an athlete like El Soto.”

The Cuban team’s medical director in Winnipeg stated that he had performed “a detailed analysis of everything ingested by Sotomayor in the previous days and it is impossible that traces of any strange substance could appear” in the tests.

“We don’t have the evidence to blame anyone, but we are convinced that Javier Sotomayor is innocent,” assured Dr. Mario Granda.

The International Track and Field Federation’s sanction against Sotomayor is pending. Punishment could be a two-year suspension from participating in federation accredited events, including the Track and Field World Championships this month in Spain and the 2000 Olympic Games.

If the international body sanctions Sotomayor, there are channels through which he can appeal the decision.

To date, most cases of athlete drug use in Cuba, considered “minimal” by authorities, have involved track and field, weight- lifting and martial arts. Most often, the substances consumed are diuretics and anabolic steroids.

The first reported case of drug use was weight-lifter Daniel Nunez at the 1983 Pan American Games. Later came discus throwers Idelisa Ramos and Juan Martinez Brito, and javelin thrower Dulce Maria Gonzalez in 1992, and last year shot-put thrower Herminia Fernandez.

In addition to the sanctions imposed by international sports organisations, Cuba has imparted its own punishment, in some cases doubling the time period of an athlete’s suspension from competition.