By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Jan 31 2000 (IPS)

They called her the phoenix of track and field when she won the gold medal at the 1995 World Championships, two years after an accident had left her near death.

Ana Fidelia Quirot, Cuba’s two-time 800-metre world champion, knows only that her life has been a constant challenge, an ongoing race in pursuit of a goal.

As the year 2000 began, the athlete reinitiated training after a one-year hiatus, during which time she became a mother. “I have told my coach and other trainers that I am going to approach this just like I did the 1995 world championships, without any pressure, and see if things come out like they did before,” says Quirot.

The runner is not ruling out participating in the Sidney Olympics in September. “I have one year against me, but the Olympics are in September, and I’ll have plenty of time to prepare and decide on the 1500 metre, the 800 metre, or the relay. It all depends on how I handle training,” she adds.

Quirot points out that the decision on whether she will continue depends on her times being good enough to qualify. “If my times are not good, I won’t try out for any event. In theory, we don’t have much competition…But all the wonderful things I have achieved are not going to be tarnished by just because I want to continue being an active competitor,” she explains.

Quirot’s coach, Leandro Civil, believes the athlete is going through a special period after her pregnancy, and the birth of the baby. “She seems more confident and calm,” he affirms.

The marks from the burns Quirot suffered when a pot of boiling water overturned, covering her as she washed clothes Jan 22, 1993, are visible over most of her body. They are a daily reminder of the dramatic moments she has faced, but she limits herself to describing them as “difficult.”

“I am one of the many fruits of Cuban medicine,” she asserts, playing down the importance of her strong will that helped her through the ordeal. “Again and again I told myself ‘I am going to run, I am going to run,” though I never imagined the results of Gotenborg (Sweden) and Athens (World Championships),” she says.

The races in these two cities, in 1995 and 1997, respectively, both resulted in Quirot’s coronation as world champion, startling those who thought her running career was over, and reaffirming the support of her millions of fans who see her as a symbol of Cuban sports.

Not surprisingly, a survey by the Cuban magazine “Bohemia” included her among Cuba’s 10 Athletes of the Century, alongside Mireya Luis, who has been a member of the national volleyball team since age 16 and is recognised as one of the best players in the world.

They share the honour of being the island’s best with Javier Sotomayor, world-record holder in the high jump, retired world champion runner Alberto Juantorena, and the two-time champion in the long jump, Ivan Pedroso, among others.

Quirot, 36, points out that on the island “anyone who wants to, if they have talent, can go far, because training does not cost a cent.” Otherwise, she says, “I would never have been able to develop as an athlete. First, because I am black, and second, because my family had no way to pay for all that I needed to practice the sport.”

Latin America’s best woman athlete feels true devotion for her country’s socialist government, and she does not hide it. Though she has never received an invitation to move to a different country, she rejects the mere possibility.

“No one can buy me, not even with all the money in the world,” she says.

Women play a major role in Cuban sports. In the 1995 Pan- American games, for example, 71 of the 238 medals won by the island nation’s athletes belong to women.

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