SPORTS-LATAM: Cuba – Latin America’s Olympic Powerhouse

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Sep 14 2000 (IPS) - Cuba has headed to the Olympic Games in Sydney with a delegation of 239 athletes — including 88 women — who according to conservative projections could take home 14 gold medals.

Nearly half of the Cuban athletes who have flown to Australia to compete in 24 of the 28 disciplines are participating in their first Olympic Games. Cuba has won 116 medals in the history of the modern-day Games, which began in 1896 in Athens.

The Cuban delegation has a good chance of success in men’s and women’s volleyball, baseball, boxing, weight-lifting, fencing and track and field, and Cuba is likely to remain among the world’s top 10 countries overall.

Some observers point out that Cuba has chalked up impressive results in combat sports, and say there is no reason Sydney should be an exception — which means the delegation also stands a good chance of taking medals in freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, as well as men’s and women’s judo.

Iván Pedroso, seven-time world champion in the long-jump, is one of the most likely winners, while the outlook is somewhat less promising for record-holding high-jumper Javier Sotomayor.

Sotomayor ended up travelling to Sydney after the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) reduced his suspension for alleged doping at the Pan-American games in the Canadian city of Winnipeg in 1999 from two years to one year.

Although Sotomayor continued to train, he did not compete for 12 months, which puts him at a disadvantage to rivals like Russia’s Viacheslav Voronin, the United States’ Nathan Leeper, or Canada’s Mark Boswell and Kwaku Boateng.

Cuban fans are hoping the women’s baseball and volleyball teams will bring home their third consecutive Olympic medal, after winning the gold medal in Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta (1996).

But in baseball, Cuba’s favourite sport, the challenge is even bigger today, because for the first time the Games have been thrown open to professional players.

Cuba’s aim to hold onto its leadership position in the sport is expected to come up against stiff competition from the United States, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

The athletes from this Caribbean island nation have been entrusted with the mission to defend “the honour of their fatherland” in Sydney against possible attempts by Cuban exiles to tarnish their participation in the Games.

“Each one of you…should go prepared to face aggression, harassment, and attempts at blackmail or bribery,” warned Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque at the delegation’s official send-off.

The socialist government of Fidel Castro blames defections by athletes on pressure and manipulation from its ideological enemies, who traditionally step up their activity on the occasion of international competitions.

“All of you will be the targets of heavy pressure, cheap or lavish attempts to buy you off, and tempting offers,” Pérez Roque told the athletes, warning that those who fell into temptation would be treated as traitors by the Cuban people.

According to official data, 97 percent of Cuba’s Olympic athletes emerged from the National School Games. They have attended the university for two years on average, and their median age is 27.

After staying away from the Games for 12 years, Cuba ended up in fifth place in Barcelona, Spain in 1992, with 31 medals, including 14 gold.

Four years later, in the U.S. city of Atlanta, it placed ninth among more than 190 countries, taking 25 medals, nine of which were gold.

Twenty of the countries participating in the Games in Sydney — Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, Iran, Italy, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Algeria, Cape Verde, Ghana and South Africa — have Cuban trainers on their delegations, as part of the Castro administration’s three-decades old sports assistance programme.

More than 9,000 Cuban athletes and trainers have assisted 97 countries in the past 30 years, while 35 are currently collaborating with foreign teams in Sydney, said Roberto González, general manager of the state company Cubadeportes.

Cuba’s cooperation and assistance in sports has expanded over the past decade, with 7,000 athletes and trainers taking part in the programme since 1991, mainly in nations of the developing South, and at times in “very difficult” conditions, according to one official report.