SPORTS-CUBA: International Coaching to Be Tested in Sydney

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Aug 17 2000 (IPS) - Delegations from 19 countries heading to the Sydney Olympic Games include Cuban sports experts, the product of an international athletic assistance programme the Caribbean island launched more than 30 years ago.

Roberto González, general director of Cubadeportes S.A., said athletes who are to participate in the games this September – from nine countries in Latin American, five in Asia, four in Africa and one in Europe – received training from 35 Cuban experts.

Over the last three decades, more than 9,000 Cuban sports specialists have provided such assistance in 97 countries on five continents, González said in an interview released Wednesday by the state-controlled media.

In just the last nine years, 7,000 sports experts from the island have participated in athletic training programmes, mostly in countries of the developing South, and often under “very difficult” circumstances, he said.

One of the beneficiaries has been Spain, though it is now caught up in a dispute with Cuba over Niurka Montalvo, a Cuban- born athlete whose request to compete in Sydney under the Spanish flag was rejected by the Cuban Olympic Committee (COC).

COC based its refusal on the fact that, according to the Olympic Charter, an athlete who has represented one country in world-class sports events or championships and then changes nationality must wait three years before participating in the Olympics as a representative of the second country.

“The Montalvo case is not selective posturing, nor is it directed against the Spanish Olympic Committee, or the government, and much less against the Spanish people. We simply uphold our absolute rejection to the stealing of talent,” affirmed José Ramón Fernández, COC president.

The athlete, a long-jumper who decided to abandon Cuba prior to the World Championships in 1997 in Athens, became a citizen of Spain just last year.

Cubadeportes leader González stressed that 28 Cuban experts in eight disciplines have worked with and developed sports teams with good results in Spain, whose Athletics Federation reacted with anger to Havana’s attitude in the Montalvo case.

González especially emphasised the “top level training” Cubans had provided for Spain’s men’s volleyball team and boxers.

In his opinion, the quality of Cuban assistance is evident in the results achieved by the athletes, many who have gone on to win gold medals.

He pointed out that at the Caribbean Maracaibo Games in 1998, some 90 coaches from the island were part of delegations from 10 countries, and their athletes won 142 medals.

At the 1996 Olympics in the US city of Atlanta, athletes from around the world who had Cuban coaches won two gold, two silver and two bronze medals. Last year, at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, the Cuban experts helped eight countries take home 25 medals.

“It is assistance that is provided without even considering that the athletes receiving it might steal sports titles from Cuban athletes,” González said.

In September, Cuba plans to inaugurate the International School of Physical Education and Sports and an anti-doping laboratory, institutions considered emblematic of the “globalisation of solidarity” advocated by the Fidel Castro government.

The educational centre will open its doors on the outskirts of the Cuban capital to 500 students from 77 countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. Plans are on the drawing board for a capacity of 1,500 students.

The programme includes 400 annual scholarships to be awarded by the Olympic Committee of participating countries. Cuban authorities believe this assistance should go to athletes from the poorer sectors of society.

Alberto Juantorena, a former star athlete and current president of the Cuban Federation of Athletics, announced that the laboratory, equipped with the latest technologies and highly qualified staff, would give priority to the nations of the South.

Castro decided to set up this centre in Cuba after the problems at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, where several Cuban athletes tested positive for drugs banned by the sports authorities.

Cuba, which will compete in Sydney with more than 240 athletes, has won a total of 116 medals at past Olympics, including 46 gold, 36 silver and 44 bronzes.

After a 12-year absence from the games, Cuba was fifth in the Barcelona Olympics medal count, with 31, including 14 golds.

Four years later, in Atlanta, the island’s athletes reached ninth place in the medal totals, with 25, of which nine were gold.